Last week Valve said they were going to be taking action against sites facilitating Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gambling, and it looks like they’re making good on that promise, sending cease and desist letters to over 20 offending sites. The sites named have ten days to comply before having their Steam accounts shut down.
An image of the notice was posted by one such site, CSGOBig, and it contained a full list of sites receiving this first wave notices. They’re mostly CS:GO names, but one Dota 2 site was included as well. CSGOBig says they’ll be shutting down ”temporarily” to comply with Valve, but the tone of the notice doesn’t leave much room for argument.
Hey guys, #CSGOBig will be disabling deposits and will be shutting down temporarily to comply with Valve. Read more: https://t.co/aDjhKNF65z
— CSGOBig (@CSGOBig) July 20, 2016
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“We are aware that you are operating one of the gambling sites listed below. You are using Steam accounts to conduct this business. Your use of Steam is subject to the terms of the Steam Subscriber Agreement (“SSA”). Under the SSA Steam and Steam services are licensed for personal, non-commercial use only. Your commercial use of Steam accounts is unlicensed and in violation of the SSA. You should immediately cease and desist further use of your Steam accounts for any commercial purpose. If you fail to do this within (10) days Valve will pursue all available remedies including without limitation terminating your accounts.”
That notice is signed by Karl Queckenbush, Valve’s general counsel. It’s been a long, strange story for the gambling controversy and I’ve got the feeling it’s going to get weirder before things are through. You certainly shouldn’t be surprised to see Valve taking explicit steps to stop these sites since the story blew up.
