Steam Legal Challenge

[stagecoach]

UK legal action against Valve over Steam prices gets go ahead

Millions of gamers could get compensation if the lawsuit - which accuses Valve of charging inflated prices - succeeds.

www.bbc.com

 

[wreeder]

Sounds like a folly of a lawsuit. Steam doesn't set prices, the developers do. Steam just gets 30% of whatever the price is. Steam only requires the devs not to undercut the Steam price by not selling it cheaper somewhere else. Seems fair to me since Steam does the marketing to its 31 million members. The result of that policy is that the Steam price is always cheaper not higher.

 

[pware]

On reading the article a few points by the plaintiff interested me.

alleges Valve "forces" game publishers to sign up to conditions which prevents them from selling their titles earlier or for less on rival platforms.

It would depend on local laws but that could be considered a restraint of trade. Without knowing the UK laws that point could succeed.

Valve requires users to buy all additional content through Steam, if they've bought the initial game through the platform it is essentially "locking in" users to continue making purchases there.

The posts from Trainz users in these forums, who state that they are able to purchase the game from Steam and then purchase DLC from either Steam or the Trainz Store, disputes that claim. A few more recent posts have mentioned that the latest DLC offerings are only available from the Trainz Store but Steam users can still access them.