Dota 2 News

Valve is being sued by New York Attorney General Letitia James. The accusation: "promoting illegal gambling through videogames."

A lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James accuses Valve of "illegally promoting gambling through videogames popular with children and teenagers." The developer behind Steam has long featured loot boxes in games including Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2, which offer a selection of typically cosmetic rewards that use a random roll to determine the prize awarded from a list when they are opened. The Office of the Attorney General alleges, "Valve has made billions of dollars luring its users, many of whom are teenagers or younger, to engage in gambling in the hopes of winning expensive virtual items that they can cash in on."

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Valve accused of "letting children and adults alike illegally gamble" via loot boxes in New York state lawsuit

Valve's Lionel Hutzes have been summoned to slide down the fireman's pole and deal with yet more legal wranglings involving the behemoth behind Steam. New York state attorney general Letitia James has filed a lawsuit against the company for allegedly violating gambling laws via the use of loot boxes in games like Counter-Strike 2 and Team Fortress 2.

Every year, dedicated Dota players around the globe join together and train relentlessly with a single goal in mind: to battle through the highest levels of opposition and emerge victorious as the last squad standing. These resolute competitors must find a way to intertwine the strands of talent, dreams, and sacrifice into one immortal design, knowing every challenge, every choice, every risk pulls the pattern tighter, and every mistake they make threatens to tear it all apart.

The final threads of this year's competitive season will cross in China, as the 15th Anniversary of The International welcomes the best Dota teams in the world to face off for the Aegis of Champions on August 20-23 at the Oriental Sports Center in Shanghai.

The sixteen teams contending for the Aegis will consist of rosters that earn direct invites and those that arise from the Open Qualifiers (June 9-12) and the Regional Qualifiers (June 15-28). Once the action moves to Shanghai, the teams must fight through a Swiss-style Group Stage (August 13-16) to secure one of eight slots at the main event.

Make sure to check back for more information on ticketing as we approach the showdown in Shanghai. For now, there's already a ton of pro Dota heating up the calendar, and it will only get more intense as we weave further into the year. Tune in as teams battle across all regions to prove they deserve a chance to stand amongst the world's finest on Dota's biggest stage.

Dota 2 Update - 1/30/2026

[p]Over the past few days we've addressed the following issues:[/p]

[p]Fixed a bug where Clinkz's Skeleton Archers were doing more than the intended amount of damage to buildings.[/p]
[p]Fixed a bug where Slark's Depth Shroud was not applying the intended move speed and health regen to allies.[/p]
[p]Fixed a bug where Spectre's Shadow Step had an interaction with attack range extension items, which was leading to a longer than intended duration.[/p]
[p]Fixed a bug where Muerta's Gunslinger bonus damage talent did not scale when applied to illusions, leading to more damage than intended.[/p]
[p]Fixed a bug where Turbo games would sometimes deduct 2 gold on ban phase completion.[/p]
[p]Fixed Largo's Croak of Genius damage proccing other abilities (Batrider's Sticky Napalm, Searing Signet, etc.)[/p]
[p]Fixed a performance issue with network encoding which substantially reduces the number of 'server hitch' frames.[/p]
[p]Restructured how cosmetic items interact with Dota network traffic: Most cosmetic items now take zero network bandwidth after game start, improving both client and server performance.[/p]
[p]Fixed a bug where cosmetic items were being created every time a hero spawned, gradually reducing performance.[/p]
[p]Items equipped in only ability effects slots no longer appear as if equipped on the hero in post-game or MVP screens.[/p]

7.40c Gameplay Patch

[p]Patch 7.40c is out now and you can check out the patch notes here. [/p][p][/p][p]As a reminder, the Monster Hunter event ends February 6, 2026, after which you'll no longer be able to earn progress or craft items. Today's update also adds new Universal Material packs for purchase, providing an alternative way to get materials and finish crafting any remaining items before the event ends.[/p][p][/p][p]In addition, we've addressed the following issues: [/p]

[p]Fixed Blood Grenade bonus health not being updated when stack count changes[/p]
[p]Fixed Helm of the Dominator and Helm of the Overlord granting experience to Lone Druid's Spirit Bear, instead of Lone Druid[/p]
[p]Fixed Helm of the Overlord not granting bounty and experience for dominating creeps[/p]
[p]Fixed Illusion Rune not disjointing projectiles upon activating[/p]
[p]Fixed physical lifesteal working when attacking a unit with an all-damage barrier[/p]
[p]Fixed Quick Buy sometimes not removing queued items when recipes are combined[/p]
[p]Fixed Smoke of Deceit being castable from the stash[/p]
[p]Fixed Anti-Mage with Shard and Magebane's Mirror Facet instantly killing Spectre when using Counterspell while walking on a Spectral Dagger path targeted at another unit.[/p]
[p]Fixed Arc Warden's Tempest Double being able to pick talents[/p]
[p]Fixed Bounty Hunter unable to target Spirit Bear with Friendly Shadow[/p]
[p]Fixed Brewmaster's level 25 talent not applying to brewlings[/p]
[p]Fixed Clinkz's Infernal Shred ignoring more armor than intended[/p]
[p]Fixed Doom not getting Ancient Prowler Shaman's Petrify ability when devouring the neutral[/p]
[p]Fixed Largo's Encore sometimes not refreshing an existing buff on yourself or the target[/p]
[p]Fixed Morphling not losing the bonus damage from unused stones when replicating back from Earth Spirit[/p]
[p]Fixed Morphling perpetually spawning Monkey King's Wukong's Command soldiers when replicating Monkey King with Aghanim's Scepter[/p]
[p]Fixed Medusa being able to get infinite health when purchasing a heart while Lifestealer has infested medusa and then using Shadow Demon's Disseminate with the Promulgate Facet targeting Medusa[/p]
[p]Fixed Spectre Arcana's idle and idle rare animations[/p]