Oh, Valve. They’re tough to not talk about when it comes to PC gaming and marketplaces, given how big Steam is as a platform; thousands of games from thousands of developers are all available in one convenient spot. However, given how convenient that is, the storefront, and subsequently Valve, aren’t immune to controversy.
Today, in a report from Bloomberg, has revealed that the company can and will be facing an anti-trust lawsuit this week. The decision comes from US District Judge John C. Coughenour and is seemingly a continuation of Wolfire Gaming’s lawsuit against Steam from last April, saying that they use the 30% cut as a means to “exploit publishers and consumers”.
There is a bit of context on that last sentence; Steam takes a 30% cut of all of a game’s sales to keep that game on Steam, and Steam says this price is still as competitive as it was 18 years ago (via Protocol). Wolfire sees this as a point of contention due to the Steam Key Price Parity Provision.
The Steam Key price Parity Provision ensures that publishers won’t sell their game for a better price on another platform. As a result of these practices, other stores struggle to compete with Steam, and developers and publishers reportedly have no choice but to continue selling on Valve’s storefront. At least that’s what Wolfire Gaming alleges.
Anyways, back to today’s update. Judge Coughenour had said the following:
The company ‘allegedly enforces this regime through a combination of written and unwritten rules’ imposing its own conditions on how even non-Steam-enabled games are sold and priced. These allegations are sufficient to plausibly allege unlawful conduct.
These updates are preceded by the fact that Steam filed to dismiss these claims last July, which eventually happened in November. The ruling also came with a notice that Wolfire could file another complaint addressing the issues highlighted in the dismissal, within 30 days. And given what’s going on today, that’s precisely what happened.
We’ll continue to update this story as it develops.
