The European Commission announced in a press release that it is fining Valve and five other publishers for “geo-blocking” PC games, thereby preventing their sale across the EU. Valve has already said it plans to appeal the decision and has now issued a much longer statement explaining its position on the EC’s conclusions.
The fine concerns the Steam activation keys provided to developers – not games sold directly on Steam. “Valve provides Steam activation keys for free” to developers, a company representative told us, and these keys are often sold at a third-party store. Valve states that “approximately only 3% of all games using Steam (and none of Valve’s own games) at the time were subject to contested region blockages in the EEA.”
The company adds that “it believes that the extension of EC liability to a platform supplier in these circumstances is not supported by applicable law”. However, Valve also says it has already stopped blocking games by region in the EEA in 2015, except when required by law to prohibit the sale of certain games in specific regions.
You can read Valve’s reply in full below.
Valve’s statement:
During the seven-year investigation, Valve cooperated extensively with the European Commission (“EC”), providing evidence and information as requested. However, Valve refused to admit that it broke the law, as required by the EC. Valve disagrees with the EC’s conclusions and the fine imposed on Valve.
The EC charges do not refer to the sale of PC games on Steam – Valve’s PC game service. Instead, the EC claims that Valve has enabled geo-locking by providing Steam activation keys and – at the request of publishers – blocking those keys for specific territories (“region locks”) within the EEA. These keys allow a customer to activate and play a game on Steam when the user purchased it from a third-party reseller. Valve provides Steam activation keys for free and does not receive any portion of the purchase price when a game is sold by third-party resellers (such as a reseller or other online store).
Region locks apply only to a small number of game titles. Approximately only 3% of all games using Steam (and none of Valve’s own games) at the time were subject to contested region blocks in the EEA. Valve believes that the extension of EC liability to a platform supplier in these circumstances is not supported by applicable law. However, because of EC concerns, Valve did indeed turn off region blocks within the EEA as of 2015, unless those region blocks were necessary for local legal requirements (such as German content laws) or geographic boundaries about where the Steam partner is licensed to distribute a game. Eliminating region blocks can also cause publishers to raise prices in less affluent regions to avoid price arbitrage. There are no costs involved in sending activation keys from one country to another, and the activation key is everything a user needs to activate and play a PC game.