PC gamers win the first battle against Valve Corporation as £656m competition claim receives judicial approval
The UK specialist competition tribunal has certified the £656m legal claim against Valve brought by children’s rights campaigner, Vicki Shotbolt. This marks a significant first victory for the class of around 14 million PC gamers against Valve – the owner of popular gaming platform, Steam.
The claim alleges that Valve has abused its dominant position in the PC gaming market under UK competition law by imposing excessive commission charges and anti-competitive restrictions on game developers selling gaming titles on the Steam platform.
These excessive commission charges are passed onto consumers by way of increased prices for PC games and in-game content.
Ms Shotbolt, the class representative, asserts that Valve’s conduct has increased the prices of games across the entire market. Therefore the class is not limited to Steam users but also includes purchasers of PC games and downloadable content on other gaming platforms and distribution channels.
In a competitive market, companies on the supply side are price accepting, like people on the demand side. Gaming in general is relatively competitive.
If a company can sell a game for 60 EUR, they won’t sell it cheaper. If they can’t make it for that cost, they won’t sell it for more, they just won’t make it.
Costs of producing the game generally have no direct impact on the market price.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
No Let’s Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
No off-topic posts/comments, within reason.
Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates.
(Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources.
If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)
It most definitely cost the customer more.
What your describing us not how pricing and economics works.
In a competitive market, companies on the supply side are price accepting, like people on the demand side. Gaming in general is relatively competitive.
If a company can sell a game for 60 EUR, they won’t sell it cheaper. If they can’t make it for that cost, they won’t sell it for more, they just won’t make it.
Costs of producing the game generally have no direct impact on the market price.