Lately, governments in different countries have been trying to regulate the internet and the online entertainment industry more and more. Games also get caught in this. Today, the CS.MONEY Blog will talk about how often Valve faced governments and how they managed to deal with these conflicts.
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Valve and Chinese laws
Let’s start with the most famous case where the company had to deal with Chinese laws. In China, games are not allowed to have blood and images of human bones. To follow these laws, the game had to change some skins, stickers, and even map elements.
It’s worth noting that Valve didn’t only change the game for Chinese censorship. There used to be a special version of the game for Germany. In it, enemies didn’t die with loud screams – instead, they raised their hands and surrendered. Now this sounds funny, but it was true. Still, Valve changed the game the most when working with the Chinese market.
X-ray for the French
There are some unique skins in Counter-Strike 2. For example, in the Blacksite collection, there’s only the MP5-SD Lab Rats. You could get this SMG by playing Danger Zone, and there’s not much you can do with it. You can’t use it in a trade-up, and it’s not a good investment.
Another unique skin is the P250 X-Ray. Even though it has “family” skins like the M4A4 and AK-47 X-Ray, it still stands out. The reason is that it’s needed to open cases in France. Local laws limit loot boxes. Because of these restrictions, players in France can’t buy cases on the Steam Market, for example.
To open a yellow case in France, you need to scan it first. The scanner becomes available after you buy the P250 X-Ray. This skin costs the same as a case key. Then comes the fun part! With the scanner, you can see what’s inside the case before opening it. Sounds cool, right?
Yeah, but there’s a catch. Once you know what’s in the case, the “scanned” item stays in the scanner and you can’t use it again. To scan the next case, you have to take the scanned item first. In the end, Valve used this workaround to follow French law, and Steam users in France can still open cases.
Interestingly, over time, players from Germany also joined the French. Starting March 16, 2026, Germany also introduced the X-Ray system. We can only suspect that more countries might join this club, depending on the law updates.
The Belgian ban
Besides France, players in the Netherlands and Belgium also faced loot box bans. In 2018, the Dutch government stated that loot boxes violated the country’s Gambling Act. The main issue was that skins from loot boxes could be traded with other players.
Valve quickly solved the issue by disabling the Steam Market in the Netherlands and Belgium. This was temporary – a few weeks later, the company flipped the situation. On July 11, 2018, an update came out, and players from these countries got access to the Market again.
To do this, Valve removed the second part of the equation. Since then, players from these two countries haven’t been able to open cases. In the game interface, they can only rent skins.
And if you’re thinking “well, I’ll just use a VPN,” that’s a big problem. Trying to trick Steam this way directly breaks the user agreement. That can get your account banned. So it’s better not to risk your account for a case – just buy the skin directly. Best of all, on CS.MONEY.
The ban in Tajikistan
Some countries sometimes ban certain games. Manhunt or Grand Theft Auto have been banned in different places because of their content. But you can’t really call Counter-Strike 2 extremely violent or immoral. Still, at the end of 2024, the police in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, released a statement saying it was “unacceptable to distribute games containing immoral and violent content.” They gave GTA as an example (no surprise) and Counter-Strike (which was a surprise).
What’s funny is that the statement had a picture with a screenshot from CS 1.6, so it wasn’t even clear which version of the game they meant.
What did Valve do about it? Probably nothing. First, the market in this country isn’t very big. Second – what can you even do? Luckily, the raids only targeted PC cafes, and players can quietly enjoy the game at home.
New age restrictions from the UK
This whole week, the community was shocked by a new UK law requiring online verification to access adult content. These restrictions even affected harmless services like Spotify. CS2 has different ratings in different countries, and for now, this threat seems to have passed.
The problem is, we’re saying “for now.” Different countries keep finding new reasons to tighten internet rules, and it’s not clear where the next issue might come from. Either way, it won’t happen immediately, and we’re sure that both players and Valve will figure something out and prepare in advance.
