The EU has fined Valve and five publishers a total of 7.8 million euros ($ 9.5 million) for its practice of selling “geo-locked” PC games on Steam, which basically means forcing users in one country (e.g. Germany) pay only the German price for a game, instead of letting them buy a cheaper version of the same game from a different European country.
The geographical blockade infringes EU antitrust rules and, as a result, the five publishers mentioned – Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax (Bethesda) – received a fine of around 6.2 million euros. . As owners and operators of Steam, Valve, which “chose not to cooperate with the Commission,” received a fine of 1.6 million euros.
“Today’s sanctions against Valve’s ‘geo-blocking’ practices and five PC video game publishers serve as a reminder that, under EU competition law, companies are prohibited from contractually restricting sales cross-border, ”said EU Executive Vice President for Competition Margrethe Vestager he says. “These practices deprive European consumers of the benefits of the EU’s digital single market and the opportunity to look for the most suitable offer in the EU.”
If what appears to be “Valve chose not to cooperate” sounds familiar, it’s because of the company it was equally useless when faced with demands in Australia, before the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission forced its hand.