Valve is currently facing an $838 million lawsuit in the United Kingdom for allegedly overcharging 14 million PC players.
A UK digital rights campaigner is responsible for bringing the lawsuit forward against Valve and claims that the video game company is deliberately "shutting out" competition through Steam. The accusations have been made in a collective action claim that was filed with the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal.
A Lawsuit Against Valve
(Photo : Valve / Screenshot taken from official YouTube account)
The digital rights activist who brought it forward is Vicki Shotbolt and an accompanying website is encouraging more people to join the claim. The suit alleges that Valve's conduct "amounts to an abuse of its dominant position which is in breach of UK competition law."
The suit also argues that 14 million people in the UK were overcharged by Valve as a result of the company's actions. It is also seeking compensation of between $28 to $56 for every single player that was supposedly affected.
There are three main issues that are central to the lawsuit, which starts with the claim that Valve "imposes" price parity clauses on publishers and developers. This allegedly prevents them from selling titles at cheaper prices on rival platforms, according to Eurogamer.
The lawsuit also argues that this limits consumer choice and simply harms competition, adding that Valve's decision prohibits consumers from buying DLC for their Steam games on rival platforms. It alleges that it also "restricts competition in the market."
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Combining this with an "excessive commission of up to 30 percent" is said to have resulted in "inflated prices on its Steam." The lawsuit explains that this has resulted in UK consumers paying too much to buy PC games and DLC.
Shotbolt added that Valve has been rigging the market and has taken advantage of UK gamers, adding that the lawsuit is an attempt to stop this "unlawful conduct." It is being handled by the legal firm Milberg London LLP, which specializes in group action cases against large companies.
Supposedly Overcharging PC Players
The latest lawsuit also comes as Valve had previously faced criticism for the 30% revenue that it takes from game purchases. The criticism more often than not comes from developers and has allowed Epic Games to create its own programs to give studios a greater cut of the profits, said GameDeveloper.
Leading partner at Milberg London, Natasha Pearman, argued that UK gamers spend billions of dollars every year and Valve itself has had a stranglehold on the PC gaming market. She added that competition law is there to protect consumers and ensure that markets are working properly as intended.
She claimed that when they do not work properly and consumers are harmed, collective actions of the same kind as the latest lawsuit give consumers a voice and a way of holding big companies to account.
For quite some time now, the size of the cut that platform owners take from developers has been a contentious area of discussion.
This is particularly true for Apple and its 30% cut from purchases. That fee was a big part of Cupertino's fight with Epic, which pointed out that it only charges developers a 12% commission, according to TechSpot.
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