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Valve is facing yet another lawsuit. This time they are dealing with an antitrust case coming in the form of a class action lawsuit that was filed in Washington this week. The lawsuit claims that Valve, by way of Steam, suppresses competition.
According to Top Class Actions, the lawsuit was filed by Wolfire Games, William Herbert, and Daniel Escobar. Wolfire claims that they are paying "supracompetitive commissions" to Valve. Herbert and Escobar are merely PC gamers, not developers, and they claim that they have paid "supracompetitive prices for PC desktop games" that they bought on Steam.
The three groups claim that Valve "violates federal and state antitrust and unfair competition laws in its domination of the PC gaming market, and is seeking public injunctive relief and damages."
According to the claim, Valve, which was founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees as a video game development company, has illegally monopolized the market and distorted and restrained competition through its Steam Store and Steam Gaming Platform.
“Game publishers are forced to use the Steam Store and give Valve 30% of nearly every sale if they want to gain access to the Steam Gaming Platform—access they need in order to sell,†the claim states, adding that the Steam Gaming Platform is the most popular platform on the market with the most users.
In order to afford Valve’s 30 percent commission, game publishers have to raise prices and can no longer afford to invest in innovation and creation, according to the class action lawsuit.
“Gamers are injured by paying higher retail prices caused by Valve’s high commissions. Competition, output, and innovation are suppressed, in ways that can never be fully redressed by damages alone.â€
“Game publishers are forced to use the Steam Store and give Valve 30% of nearly every sale if they want to gain access to the Steam Gaming Platform—access they need in order to sell,†the claim states, adding that the Steam Gaming Platform is the most popular platform on the market with the most users.
In order to afford Valve’s 30 percent commission, game publishers have to raise prices and can no longer afford to invest in innovation and creation, according to the class action lawsuit.
“Gamers are injured by paying higher retail prices caused by Valve’s high commissions. Competition, output, and innovation are suppressed, in ways that can never be fully redressed by damages alone.â€
I'm not going to defend Valve's cut, except to say it's similar or the same as what other companies are taking, i haven't seen evidence that publishers have had to raise prices of games at least in the UK, sometimes a big publisher puts out a £50 game like RE8 but it's always been like that, actually that's a bad example i just checked and it's £54.99 on PS5 so... it's cheaper on Steam... Epic are trying to compete with a smaller cut and paying out the nose for exclusives, but they won't be able to keep doing that once the Fortnite money dries up, then they might actually have to improve their platform instead of making gestures.
Steam's regular sales made it popular from the start and continues to be a big draw, i think in general consumers are pretty happy which makes me think... shouldn't this lawsuit be directed at Nintendo?
The Nintendo Switch came out in 2017 at £279.99, and after 4 years is currently going for £279.99, their pricing structure, poor customer service, lack of sales and more recently creating artificial scarcity through time limited sales is almost universally considered to be anti consumer, but they get away with it because they're "Nintendo" and they own the platform, Steam on the other hand is operating on a platform with 5+ other major digital storefronts including one that is literally built into Windows, from my perspective they're only the most popular because they were first and they provide the games, features and sales people want.
Please tell me if you think i'm wrong.