Why is Valve being sued for almost $900 million

“The legal action, originally filed in 2024 by digital rights campaigner Vicki Shotbolt”

Vicki is a leading campaigner for children’s digital rights, with over 20 years of senior leadership experience in national charities. She is the founder and CEO of Parent Zone, an organisation that works with families and global brands to improve the lives of children in today’s digital world.

(Source: https://steamyouoweus.co.uk/about-us/)

That is why Valve is being sued for 900 million. Because Vicki Shotbolt wanted to. Why did she want to? Here is her claim (in her own words, not mine):

But Steam’s prices appear to be the lowest?

Steam can offer the lowest prices because of the anti-competitive price restrictions that Valve often imposes on game developers and producers (the Price Parity Obligations). This means a publisher or developer would not be able to list a game on another platform as well as Steam, unless the prices offered on Steam is the same or lower. This applies to games on all other distribution stores (including online and physical stores) not just those distributed by Steam Keys. This allows Valve to maintain the monopoly position it has for PC Games as there is not real incentive for gamers to go elsewhere where a game may be cheaper (which would then in turn enable those other platforms to improve).

It is also not possible to offer add-on content on other distribution platforms for cheaper or at an earlier time: this limits the ability of rivals to compete on price and enables Valve to charge the consumer higher prices in the absence of competition. The claim argues that the add-on content is a separate product, and that through the price restrictions and inability to purchase add-on content from another distribution platform or the developer itself Valve has illegally tied these products and limited consumer choice. Consumers must then purchase via Steam and pay its commission charge.

In the UK, dominant companies are not allowed to charge excessive prices. The claim argues that Valve’s commission rate of up to 30% is excessive given: competitors lower commission rates; the way the platform operates for the consumer; and the high level of profit that Valve is making absent a viable competitor (which its behaviour directly restricts as developers are not permitted to list games at lower prices on competing platforms). This unfair commission charge is paid for by the consumer.

"[…] but Epic Games wasn’t sued when they bought Rocket League and Fall Guys to remove them from steam?

Steam has a much easier claim to be considered a monopoly. It’s a little like (note: I never said it’s exactly like or it is very much like—I only said it’s a little like) Chrome being a monopoly for web browsers—everyone chooses to install chrome on their computers when they install a PC and prefer not to use the pre-installed Edge or Safari. Very few people install Epic games, much like very few people install Firefox. If you want to game on PC, you pretty much have to install Steam to play with your friends you know? Otherwise you’re kinda lame and don’t have friends.

good time to buy? 👀

DMCA notices are just a strongly letter from an attorney, that they record sending to you for when they really sue you should they choose to do that

if i make a game, its gonna be open source. Modders can charge for their mods all they want, as long as they are open source. Earn the fruits of your labor, modding queens and kings, AGPL ftw. Just like elementary os can charge for its binaries, they earn that right

The modern private or otherwise profiting university is first and foremost employee farms, with many trying to be ceo farms and, well you can see what universities have churned out in that regard

So tencent or a saudi prince buys them and it will be fine guyyyyssss haha

Nothing ever bad happens under private ownership either right?

He wont though

Played it since launch on linux, which had hiccups but the resolved em over time.

Me since 2017 when I stopped dual booting. Never looked back thank goodness

Linux doesn’t have kernel level anti cheat and I hope it remains that way, but I fear my opinion will be in the minority soon if not already.

What’s hilarious is that is par the course on windows to run Steam as an admin. In fact that fixes a ton of bugs for people, so any executable the steam process spawns, like game executables, has admin rights as well.

Linux doesnt have games that install kernel-level spyware under the guise of anti-cheat. Hopefully never will, but I don’t underestimate gamers who love think spyware is a good idea. Stay away from linux if you want kernel anti cheat please, its ruining computers

i stopped dual booting many many years ago with destiny 2. I killed it. Never looked back thank goodness and never got tempted again

de minimus tariff exemption (imported goods valued at under $800) ends at the end of the month because trump said so a few days ago

this is why

source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/suspending-duty-free-de-minimis-treatment-for-all-countries/

This does not only affect playstation. Anyone who doesnt have a stockpile of inventory already imported are gonna be affected very soon.

Soon you will only be able to play on certified monitors with anticheat tampering built in. They 100% guarunteed will not be backdoored or phone home, pinky promise, it is certain.

I make no assertions of their legality

playing nintendo games on the deck

there are ways

same world/universe though

Steam Deck can’t ever have that luxury.

Still not sure why this is the case. Have yet to hear any clear argument why it will never happen for Valve.

valve can optimize their games for a steam deck. The steam deck isnt theirs?

why cant valve optimise their new games specifically for their hardware steam deck? why is that impossible?

What’s wrong with accepting payment for playing a sport? I really don’t see a problem of somebody trying to earn a living by doing that

Selling a game based off of the hard work of a game engine: good
Selling a mod based off of the hard work of intellectual property: bad

Is that too reductive? It’s the same industry: game dev

Copyleft “fanfics” are what we call the entire SCP universe. CC-BY-SA is just like the GPL. Notice it’s not CC-BY-SA-NC (NonCommercial). Labor, even if it’s “mods” or “fanfics” is still labor. What, suddenly your work grew in value because it was based off of a different license agreement? The hard work didn’t change, yet it suddenly legitimately grew in value?

If i ever made a game, im making sure everything is released cc by sa and a FLOSS software license for the source code. Because fuck the mentality that says your work isn’t valuable simply because I didn’t give you a license to “my stuff”

People get mad when payment is expected for labor

That’s called regulatory capture and is a prominent feature of capitalism. Many big companies will form a regulatory cartel in the name of safety, but position themselves as the arbiters of safety and anyone who doesn’t invest as much as them is an enemy of safety

I remember when armed Pinkertons were sent to a normal guys house by a corporation for having a few pieces of paper with stolen artwork on them only a year ago.

Some guy got some magic the gathering cards early so wizards of the coast did what any reasonable group of people would do and violently intimidated the guy until he gave up his goods.

Definitely agree, but some people remain ignorant of that part of history, so you gotta use fiction to let them know that art mimics reality and that supposed fictional dystopias are here if you look close enough, and will absolutely be here if we don’t realize it soon

Cyberpunk corporate wars becoming reality.

You laugh but it just enables private militaries aka private police

Some games are not meant to be power fantasies tho, and that is absolutely okay

Free as in speech vs free as in beer (someone other than me should probably make a better version of this). Of course the cathedral is better, and if all mods were heavily incentivized to GPL then it wouldn’t likely be a problem. People like sticking with defaults in my experience.

You can trademark the word poop though