Updated 01/21/2021: Valve has responded to the European Commission’s claims, saying they disagree with the Commission’s findings and the fine imposed on them. Read the full statement below. Original story from 20/01/2021.
Valve and a handful of game publishers have put themselves in hot water with the European Commission to geographically block Steam keys in certain regions of Europe. Steam owners, along with Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax (Bethesda’s parent company), have received a collective fine of 7.8 million euros (around 6.9 million). million pounds) for “breaching EU antitrust rules”.
Valve and publishers restricted cross-border sales of certain PC video games based on users’ geographical location within the European Economic Area (“EEA”), entering so-called “geo-blocking” practices. Commission.
Research on Valve and the five publishers found that between 2010 and 2015 they had agreements to geographically block certain Steam keys, preventing them from being activated outside the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. .
Geographic blocking is usually done so that games can be sold cheaper in low-income countries. However, people in higher-income countries have often found ways in the past to avoid regional prices. Publishbviamente, publishers are not fans of it, because that means those people capture the lowest prices.
Valve did not cooperate with the investigations and has been fined 1,624,000 euros (approximately 1.4 million pounds). However, the publishers cooperated and slightly reduced the fines. Still, SnowRunner and Greedfall publisher Focus Home managed to rack up a € 2,888,000 fine (about £ 2.6 million).
A breakdown of fines.
“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 cross-border sales,” the executive vice-president of the Commission, Margrethe Vestage, said.
“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.”
This is naughty because the European Union’s digital single market is designed so that everyone living in the EU can buy and use things from the rest of the EU countries.
Nor can this end, as the Commission says that “any person or company affected by anti-competitive conduct, as described in this case, may bring the matter before the courts of the Member States and seek damages.”
Update: Last night, Valve issued a statement to Eurogamer stating that they cooperated with the investigation and that they did not agree with the fine that has been given to them:
“During the seven-year investigation, Valve cooperated extensively with the European Commission (” EC “), providing evidence and information upon request. However, Valve declined to admit that it violated the law, as required by the EC. .Valve does not agree with the EC findings and the fine imposed on Valve.
“EC charges are not related to the sale of PC games on Steam: Valve’s PC game service. Instead, the EC alleges that Valve allowed geo-blocking by providing Steam activation keys and, at the request of the publishers, blocking these keys in certain territories (“region locks”) within the EEA. These keys allow the customer to activate and play a game on Steam when the user has purchased it from an external distributor. Valve provides Steam activation keys for free and does not receive any share of the purchase price when a game is sold by third-party resellers (such as a retailer or other online store).
“Region locks only applied to a small number of game titles. Approximately 3% of all games that used Steam (and none of Valve’s own games) at the time were subject to game locks. Valve believes that the extension of EC liability to a platform provider in these circumstances is not supported by applicable law, however, due to EC concerns, Valve disable locks in the region in the EEA from 2015, unless those locks in the region were required by local legal requirements (such as German content laws) or the geographical boundaries of places where the Steam partner removing locks from a region.Removing locks from regions can also cause publishers to raise prices in less rich regions to avoid price arbitrage.Sending activation keys from one country to another another carries no cost, and the key to ac is the only thing a user needs to activate and play a PC game ”.