UK activist hits Valve with a $903 million lawsuit — claims Steam is abusing its market dominance and forcing UK consumers to pay too much for Steam games
Valve's dominance in the PC gaming market has put it squarely in the sights of a UK activist who thinks Valve is charging Steam gamers and developers too much money for games distributed on the platform. BBC reports that Valve is being hit with a £656 million ($903 million) lawsuit for "abusing its market dominance" by digital rights campaigner Vicki Shotbolt. If she wins, all 14 million UK Steam gamers could be compensated, and similar lawsuits could likely hit Valve in other countries.
The lawsuit instigated by Shotbolt claims that Valve is prohibiting games sold on its Steam platform from being sold through other distribution platforms that might charge less for the same games. Valve is also being charged for allegedly imposing anti-steering provisions based on its in-game purchasing model, where PC game add-ons or DLC only work through Steam if the base game was purchased through Steam. Finally, Valve is being charged for charging consumers too much based on "excessive commission charges".
So far, Valve has argued against the legitimacy of this lawsuit, claiming that Shotbolt has not provided adequate methodology for determining Valve's effective commission charge.
This is not the first time Valve has been accused of taking too much income away from gamers and developers. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has been one of the biggest advocates against Steam's high commission rates and has blamed Valve for being the "Game Developer IRS". In fact, Sweeney took Google and Apple to court over the same issue, and the issue was the main reason why Epic Games removed Fortnite from both companies' stores.
Valve is one of the highest-demanding gaming platforms on the market, with an average 30% comission rate for games sold on the Steam store. Valve takes home 30% of a game's income below $9.9 million in sales. Above $10 million in sales, Valve drops its commission to 25%, and for over $50 million in sales, Valve takes home 20%.
That said, Valve is not the only company that takes home 30% comission. 30% is an industry-wide rate that most game companies have adopted. Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation, and even Good Old Games charge 30% comission under most circumstances. Epic Games Store is one of the few gaming platforms that charges well under 30% — adopting a 12% comission rate.
Regardless, Steam continues to grow, and its parent company, Valve, is ranked one of the most efficient companies in the world, generating a whopping $50 million per employee.
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Seems far fetched to me. I think arguing monopolistic behavior might have been a more effective strategy.
I do not believe Valve is forcing UK consumers to pay too much.
Might be making the same mistake Tim Sweeney did, by using the commission rate as the be-all, end-all without taking into account what the Steam platform provides.
I might be remembering wrong, but, maybe it's because, when Tim was talking about how unfair Steam is, he was ignoring how bad the Epic platform was.
