The EU fined Valve and five publishers for a total of € 7.8 million ($ 9.5 million) for “geo-blocking” sales of PC games on Steam, which basically means forcing users into a country (say, Germany) to pay only the German price for a game, instead of allowing them to buy a cheaper version of the same game from a different European country.
The geographic blockade violates EU antitrust rules and therefore the five aforementioned publishers – Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax (Bethesda) – were fined some € 6.2 million. As owners and operators of Steam, Valve – which “chose not to cooperate with the Commission” – was fined € 1.6 million.
“Today’s sanctions against the practices of“ geo-blocking ”by Valve and five PC video game publishers serve as a reminder that under EU competition law, companies are prohibited from contractually restricting international sales” , EU Executive Vice President of Competition, Margrethe Vestager says. “Such practices deprive European consumers of the benefits of the EU’s Digital Single Market and the opportunity to seek the most suitable offer in the EU”.
If the thing “Valve chose not to cooperate” sounds familiar, it’s because the company it was also useless when faced with lawsuits in Australia, before the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission forced its hand.