Games

21212 readers

253 users here now

Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.

Rules

No racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, or transphobia. Don't care if it's ironic don't post comments or content like that here.
Mark spoilers
No bad mouthing sonic games here :no-copyright:
No gamers allowed :soviet-huff:
No squabbling or petty arguments here. Remember to disengage and respect others choice to do so when an argument gets too much
Anti-Edelgard von Hresvelg trolling will result in an immediate ban from c/games and submitted to the site administrators for review. :silly-liberator:

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

jack@hexbear.net

RiotDoll@hexbear.net

Steam Owner Valve Faces $900 Million Lawsuit Over PC Monopoly Claims, Following UK Tribunal Ruling - IGN (www.ign.com)

submitted 14 hours ago by thelastaxolotl@hexbear.net to c/games@hexbear.net

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A UK tribunal has given the go-ahead to a £656 million ($901 million) collective action lawsuit targeting Valve over alleged anti-competitive practices on PC storefront Steam.

The legal action, originally filed in 2024 by digital rights campaigner Vicki Shotbolt, has now been given the green light to proceed following a ruling by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal, BBC News has reported.

In short, Valve is accused of wielding its status as the dominant digital game storefront to lock game developers and publishers into release parity restrictions, and keep game owners spending on Steam when buying add-ons.

Shotbolt's lawsuit is a collective action claim, effectively a class-action suit, which she is attempting to take forward on behalf of the 14 million UK citizens who have bought games or add-on content through Steam since 2018.

The tribunal's new ruling, published this week, takes into account Shotbolt's claims and an initial response by Valve designed to halt the legal action from progressing further.

The lawsuit alleges that Steam unfairly imposes platform parity obligations which prohibit publishers from selling games on rival stores with better terms, causing a restriction of competition. The legal action has also taken aim at the need to continue buying add-ons for games bought through Steam via Valve's own marketplace, leading to a further reduction in competition. Finally, it alleges that Valve imposes unnecessarily high commission charges — essentially, the typical 30% cut it takes when you spend money on Steam — which results in higher prices for consumers.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] trompete@hexbear.net 6 points 12 hours ago

I just checked GOG and Humble, and there's definitely things on sale on GOG that aren't on Steam, whereas the stuff on Humble seems to all be discounted on Steam with the exact same price.

It seems unreasonable to complain about (free and unlimited I think) steam keys given to the publisher come with strings attached, but these steam keys funnel people back onto steam to play the games, and are therefore preserving of steams monopoly position. I just can't imagine any court would order Valve to give away keys both for free and with zero strings attached to the publisher, they clearly provide a service here. So I guess Valve could drop the strings and just sell the keys to the publisher and that might be less abusive idk. Certainly would incentivize the publishers to try to sell the games w/o steam keys because they make more money that way.