The European Commission has fined Valve as well as five game publishers for using ‘geo-blocking’ of computer games in Europe.
In addition to Focus Home, Koch Media and Bethesda, Capcom and Bandai Namco (the companies behind the Street Fighter and Tekken franchises) will have to pay their share of the $ 9.5 million fine.
In some ways, the world of games is getting smaller thanks to massive platforms like Valve’s Steam, which allow users to download and stream games. This massive platform is the source for PC games for many people around the world, but some agreements between Valve and the above publishers place users’ illegal restrictions.
Geo-blocking is a process that effectively denies players the freedom to buy games in other countries (often at a discounted price) and play them in another country, and is prohibited by EU competition law.
Valve offered Capcom, Bandai, and others an area control feature that allows geographic restrictions on the activation of Steam keys for different titles. Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice President of the European Commission, presented a statement on the matter.
“More than 50% of all Europeans play video games,” she begins. “The video game industry in Europe is booming and is now worth more than € 17 billion. Today’s sanctions against the ‘geo-blocking’ practices of Valve and five computer game publishers serve as a reminder that companies are under EU competition law contractually restricting cross-border sales Such practices deprive European consumers of the benefits of the EU’s digital market and the opportunity to seek the most suitable offer in the EU.
Capcom and the other publishers’ initial fines were reduced because they agreed to cooperate with the EC by assisting in the investigation and explicitly acknowledging breaches of EU antitrust rules.
After a 15% and 10% reduction, respectively, Capcom’s final amount was approximately $ 480,000, while Bandai’s amounted to $ 410,000. Valve chose not to cooperate and was eventually fined $ 1.9 million.