Valve faces a £656 million lawsuit in the UK for 'overcharging 14 million PC gamers'
Valve faces a £656 million lawsuit in the UK for 'overcharging 14 million PC gamers'
A new lawsuit was filed earlier this month in the UK that alleges Valve, owner of Steam, has been overcharging 14 million PC gamers and abusing its dominant position in the UK.
Valve has a had a stranglehold on the PC games market for a long time and with this claim we’re challenging the status quo
Nothing has stopped competition from making their own platforms; god knows every god damn company out there has tried (Origin, Uplay, etc.) and failed to delivery a basic and functional option!
The reason Steam is (and will continue to be )successful is because they developed and listened to their user base without being greedy scumbags!
I think this is the key claim:
Vicki accuses Valve Corporation of shutting out competition in the PC gaming market by forcing game publishers to sign up to pricing restrictions that dictate the lowest price games can be sold for on rival platforms.
I had heard about it in the past and if true, I feel that is quite an uncompetitive practice, probably made possible by the dominant position Valve has.
The article also says
The first point is one we've heard repeated many times before, but there's never been any proof on it. Which perhaps the Wolfire lawsuit and this may actually bring to light. An accusation doesn't necessarily mean they're right though. Something people get confused on often is Steam Keys, which are completely separate to Steam Store purchases.
Saying “Don’t sell Steam keys off-platform for more than X% less than the game is priced for on Steam” and “Don’t sell your game elsewhere for more than X% less than the game is priced for on Steam“ are very different things. Steam openly does the former; I’ve never heard a reputable report of them doing the latter. The Wolfire lawsuit is explicitly about the former practice, for example.
The press release for this lawsuit reads like it’s about the latter, but I suspect that’s solely for optics. I reviewed the website dedicated to the lawsuit (steamyouoweus.co.uk) and thought they might have some more concrete evidence - nope, nothing. Under the first question in FAQs they have a link to their key documents, but the documents are “coming soon.”
Until they actually substantiate their claim, this lawsuit is just noise.
The claim is not true. The official rules are not forcing price parity.
You can sell on steam for 40$ and on gog or itch for 20$.
The only rule is that you want to sell a steamkey, making the game available through the service, to people buying from a different platform, you can't give out the steam key for cheaper on that different platform than steam customers can buy it on steam. You don't even have to pay steam the 30% cut if you're selling somewhere else.
You can even do temporary deal on a different platform, if you're doing a similar deal on steam "within a reasonable time".
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys#2
And also, you are not FORCED to sell on steam. You can just not use the platform.
Given that steam let's you sell keys on other platforms (like gog, gmg, etc) and activate them on steam, and have steam handle all the heavy work of file distribution and stuff, it makes sense that steam wouldn't want you to sell steam keys cheaper on other platforms and make them wear all the cost of distribution... Otherwise they'd get no sales and end up with all the expense
The only other choice would be to no longer allow you to get steam keys to sell on other platforms or even to give away for review purposes or things like that.
I've read about this one. I don't know if it applies to games totally managed by other stores, but I know it originated with key distribution. The gist is, they distribute keys to the publisher free of charge, so this was so they can't undermine their pricing while still utilizing their content distribution systems.
IIRC, it basically just says that base prices have to be the same.
It’s misleading, at best. They don’t actually restrict sales on other platforms at all. You’re free to sell your game at whatever price you want. The only restrictions they place are on Steam keys which unlock the game for a Steam account. They restrict the price of Steam keys, because they want price parity for Steam keys. But you’re still welcome to sell non-Steam versions of your game at whatever price you want. Hell, you can give it away for free if you want, as long as it’s not giving away steam keys.
For instance, GoG doesn’t distribute games via Steam keys, so you can sell your game on GoG for cheaper.
Really? Don't fuck with valve. I hate every single other launcher.
They are the ONLY game service that caters to Linux users. There are millions of Linux gamers, seems to me like the other companies are abusing their dominant position of using Windows to keep linux users out. How about that?
What if the legislation required that content platforms provide an API that adhered to an open standard? Such that there could be open source clients that unify them all (not just janky ones that do their best to not break with every platform update), so that consumers can have their libraries in one place, and still browse all store deals in one place.
Ideally the legislation would also extend to all content including music, shows, movies, and internet content/streams, so that we don't have to have separate apps for Netflix, and Hulu, and Amazon, and HBO, and Roku, etc.
I feel like this suit should be DOA. The only leg they appear to be able to stand on is DLC requiring to be purchased through Steam but - how on earth would that work otherwise?
Feels like they're fishing for a settlement.
That's not even true is it? I'm pretty sure you can buy DLC for various steam games on places like humble bundle and they activate on steam
Steam, with its regular 80% off sales?
I was always confused by why Gaben doesn't just snap his fingers and rid us of the British isles once and for all. He is powerful enough, isn't he?
Our Lord Gaben is a Benevolent God.
Pretty sure he can just buy the UK if he desires.
God yes please, got to be better than who we’re stuck with at the moment
you need a season antagonist
Absolutely nonsense. Nothing Valve has done prevents the competition from doing a better job.
Skill issue.
EDIT: Apparently, the complaint was filed by the CEO of a "Parental Control" company that has a partnership with Meta. This story becomes increasingly ridiculous.
EDIT: Apparently, the complaint was filed by the CEO of a "Parental Control" company that has a partnership with Meta. This story becomes increasingly ridiculous.
Yeah, there was a similar class-action lawsuit making the rounds in America a few months ago. It failed to take off, because PC gamers pretty unanimously went “lmao get off your bullshit” as soon as they saw what the lawsuit was alleging. It was very heavily advertised on Meta platforms.
Is the government's out of money?
It's a UK law firm filing the class action suit. They're also suing Sony for £5 billion for the same thing. It's just lawyers looking for money.
You fail to explain how stupid the Sony case is. The case is about playstation having a monopoly... on the distribution of playstation games...
Can anyone spare £1 trillion in these trying times? I gotta buy some cheese and crackers and a box of wine.
Essentially, this hinges on whether demanding price parity with other platforms is anticompetitive... I think that's going to be a tough hill to climb, especially as they're only asking to not be undercut as a supplier. There's no requirement to sell exclusively through Steam, and Steam even allows developers to give Steam keys on other platforms, including with game bundles that have a total "value" well below Steam sale prices.
Like, I use Steam daily, and buy multiple games most months in game bundles, but in the last few years, I've only made a handful of purchases on Steam. One game and my Steam Deck Dock were my only Steam purchases this calendar year, and my Steam Deck OLED and two games were my only purchases last year, but in that time I added about 150 new games to my Steam library.
I don't think people realise how generous steam is by allowing Devs to sell steam keys on other platforms and still handle all the distribution and updates and everything for a key they didn't get paid for, and all they ask is you give the same or better deal to customers who purchase direct through steam
Yeah, exactly. Steam gets very little money from me (well, aside from the Deck), but I get all the benefits from their services. Not sure how that's monopolistic...
Essentially, this hinges on whether demanding price parity with other platforms is anticompetitive...
No it's not. This hinges on whether you can sell the generated free Steam keys on other sites for less than the price you have set on Steam.
You can absolutely sell your game on another site for less. You can't sell your game on another site for less and make Steam pick up the infrastructure costs.
And I face a lifestyle of carefree happiness when I buy a lottery ticket.
This is a private individual who is suing valve for her own personal gain. This isn't a government or a class action. If they win valve gives this one lady half a billion dollars. Sounds bullshit to me.
lol I'm as anti-capitalist as the next internet leftist, and I absolutely think it would be fucking awesome if Steam were replaced by a national digital distribution service that have flat costs for publishing, and high quality standards before allowing a game to be published. Gold-digging lawsuits aren't on the path to that better world though.
Not sure I'd trust a national distribution service (especially in the UK) more though
I assume if this were even 1% winnable that Epic Games would've done this long ago