Icon: enlarge
Valve icon Gabe Newell (right): Valve is one of the most famous game studios in the world
Photo: ROBYN BECK / AFP
Valve and five publishers of video games should pay fines of 7.8 million euros according to the will of EU competition officials.
As the EU Commission announced on Wednesday as a reason, EU antitrust law had been violated.
Valve is known as a developer of games such as "Half-Life" and operates the computer game platform Steam, on which tens of thousands of third-party games are offered.
The other companies affected are Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax, they are also among the better-known names in the industry.
ZeniMax, for example, is the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, which is famous for game series like "The Elder Scrolls" and "Fallout".
Valve's fine is reportedly more than 1.6 million euros.
In contrast to the fines for the other companies concerned, which add up to more than six million euros, it has not been reduced by 10 to 15 percent, it says: Unlike the other companies, the Steam operator has not been with the EU Commission worked together.
Of the five publishers, Focus Home has to pay the highest fine (just under 2.9 million euros), while the lowest amount concerns Bandai Namco (340,000 euros).
The companies are accused of that
Companies are charged with preventing consumers from playing purchased video games in other EU countries.
Specifically, there should have been agreements that, among other things, would have resulted in activation codes - so-called keys - that are required on Steam to activate games, only working within certain national borders.
In other words: A game bought in countries such as Poland, Hungary or Romania may not have been activated in other EU countries and therefore could not be used, according to the criticism.
Valve itself had already emphasized in 2019 that the Commission's allegations did not relate to the sale of PC games on Steam.
Instead, the commission accused the company of making so-called geoblocking possible.
For this purpose, the company made Steam Keys available to the game publishers and linked these keys - at the request of the respective publisher - to certain territories within the European Economic Area, it was said at the time.
Due to the concerns of the EU Commission, those “region locks” in the European Economic Area were switched off from 2015, according to Valve - except in cases in which local legal regulations or sales guidelines made them necessary.
It's about 100 games
The communication from the EU Commission now states that geoblocking practices have affected around 100 PC games of various genres, including sports, simulation and action games.
Consumers were prevented from activating and playing PC games that they had bought from distributors of the publisher.
European consumers have been denied the benefits of the digital single market through these business practices, it continues, "and in particular the opportunity to choose the best offer in different Member States".
The antitrust proceedings against the companies were initiated in February 2017.
EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager commented that the fines now imposed served "as a reminder that EU competition law prohibits companies from contractually restricting cross-border sales."
In December 2018, the so-called geoblocking regulation had already been applied in the EU.
It prohibits online retailers from geographically restricting the use of PC games on physical media.
In view of the different prices depending on the country, buying games in other EU countries can be quite attractive for consumers.
Icon: The mirror
mbö / dpa