10 Gaming Facts Nobody Wants To Admit

10. Valve Are To Blame For Loot Boxes

Though Valve are relatively unproblematic as video game megacorps go, they certainly shoulder a good portion of the blame for helping normalise loot boxes in gaming culture through Team Fortress 2.

While hardly the first game to implement loot boxes, Team Fortress 2 was one of the most popular and successful early titles to do so, with players able to speed up the process of unlocking digital goods by paying for the pleasure - as opposed to grinding.

This began back in September 2010, and as the popularity of loot boxes surged in the years that followed, it's little surprise that the rest of the gaming industry took notice.

As for Valve themselves, they raked in over $1 billion in revenue last year from Counter-Strike 2 loot boxes alone.

The inclusion of loot boxes may not be bad in all games, but it has nevertheless become the most blatantly cynical way for publishers to create another revenue stream for their products, and Valve are hugely complicit in that ongoing culture.