Official statement from Valve.
We shared with the NYAG that these types of boxes in our games are widely used, not just in video games but in the tangible world as well, where generations have grown up opening baseball card packs and blind boxes and bags, and then trading and selling the items they receive.
You’re right! We should stop that too!
I think they’re referring to valves community market in tandem with loot boxes.
Valve drops boxes in cs2, which you pay to open. You get a weapon skin. But the difference is that I can sell that skin on the steam marketplace, and then turn around and buy Helldivers 2 with that credit.
Valve provides a pipeline for skins and ingame items to be traded for goods and services outside the game ecosystem.
I assume that makes them easier to go after in some way.
The example NYAG was providing was:
Which I think is a bit far fetched to “launder” or somehow convert a digital item to physical cash.