EU antitrust hits Valve for the geographical blocking of some video games
Brussels fined Valve and 5 other major video game publishers (Bandai, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media, ZeniMax) for a total of € 7.8 million. Here because
The European Antitrust is back to strike, this time against video game distributors.
On Wednesday, EU antitrust regulators fined US video game distributor Valve Corp and 5 video game publishers totaling € 7.8 million for blocking cross-border sales of video games in Europe.
The European commission has reduced the fines by 10-15% for the five video game publishers Bandai Namco and Capcom (Japan), Focus Home (France), Koch Media (Germany) and ZeniMax (USA), as they admitted to having committed an error.
All the details.
THE BRUSSELS ACCUSATION
Valve and the other companies have limited cross-border sales of some PC video games based on users' geographic location within the European Economic Area (SEE). Thus adopting the so-called "geo-blocking" practices.
FINES
The Commission has reduced fines for publishers, totaling over 6 million euros, thanks to the collaboration of the companies.
BECAUSE IT IS MULTIPLE MORE
Valve chose not to cooperate with the Commission and was fined over € 1.6 million.
The company owns Steam, the largest PC game distribution platform in the world. Steam boasts an offer of over 35 thousand games.
THE LOCK ACTIVATED ON THE STEAM PLATFORM
As the EU Commission explains, Valve provides video game publishers with the technical means to activate and play games on Steam, including those purchased outside of Steam, through so-called "Steam activation keys".
In addition, Valve offers publishers a territory control function, which allows the creation of geographic restrictions on activation.
The combination of the Steam activation keys with the territory control function allows the “geo-blocking” of PC video games based on the user's geographic location.
WHAT THE VIDEO GAME EDITORS HAVE DONE
In turn, the publishers required Valve to set geo-restrictions and provide geo-locked Steam activation keys. The publishers have provided these keys to their distributors for the sale and distribution of PC video games in the Member States concerned. As a result, users located outside of a designated member state were prevented from activating a particular PC game with Steam activation keys.
INTERESTED ABOUT 100 VIDEOGAMES
The geo-blocking practices involved approximately 100 PC video games of different genres, including sports, simulation and action games. They prevented consumers from activating and playing PC games sold by publishers' distributors on physical media, such as DVDs, or via download.
These commercial practices have therefore denied European consumers the benefits of the EU's digital single market to shop around between Member States to find the most suitable offer.
IT IS FORBIDDEN TO LIMIT CROSS-BORDER SALES
Competition manager Margrethe Vestager indicated that “more than 50% of all Europeans play video games. It is a thriving industry worth over € 17 billion. Today's sanctions against the 'geo-blocking' practices of Valve and five PC game publishers serve as a reminder that companies are prohibited from contractually restricting cross-border sales ”.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/antitrust-ue-picchia-valve-per-il-blocco-geografico-di-alcuni-videogame/ on Wed, 20 Jan 2021 14:26:29 +0000.