- Valve faces a £656 million class action lawsuit in the UK for alleged anti-competitive practices with Steam.
- The action, led by activist Vicki Shotbolt, represents some 14 million users who purchased games or DLC since 2018.
- The lawsuit alleges 30% commissions, price parity clauses, and a blocking effect that would raise prices and limit competition.
- The British court has rejected Valve's attempts to halt the case, which will proceed and could shape the future of digital stores on PC.
For years, for anyone who plays on PC, Buy digital video games on Steam It has become almost synonymous with buying digital video games.It's common practice that when a title is announced for PC, it's assumed it will eventually be released on Valve's store. It's precisely this global benchmark position that... It is now being scrutinized in British courts.
In the United Kingdom, a Multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit against Valve over Steam's operation, in which it is questioned whether the company has used its market power to set conditions that make games more expensive and limit competition between PC stores. The case, which has already been given the green light to proceed, This could have consequences for players and publishers across Europe..
A £656 million lawsuit targeting the "Steam tax"
The legal action was filed in 2024 by Vicki Shotbolt, digital rights activist and head of Parent Zone, representing up to 14 million Steam users in the UK who have purchased games or additional content since June 2018. According to the lawsuit, Valve has allegedly been "overcharging" PC gamers thanks to a series of practices that would have distorted prices.
The procedure, authorized by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) London, claims around 656 billion pounds sterlinga figure that ranges between 750 and 900 million euros depending on the exchange rate used. This refers to a collective action in opt-out formatThose who meet the criteria defined by the court are part of the affected group unless they expressly request to be excluded.
The accusation stems from a central idea: the well-known Steam takes a 30% commission on every sale. would be excessive and, thanks to Valve's dominant position in the PC market, That cost would have been passed on to the final price of games and DLC.In other words, it is argued that British players would have paid more for their digital purchases than they would have in a truly competitive environment.
The concept of "Steam tax" to refer to that additional cost. According to estimates by Shotbolt's lawyers, consumers could receive compensation of between 20 and 40 pounds each, although the final amounts depend on the court's decision and how many people fall within the group covered by the ruling.
Price parity, DLC lock-in, and Valve's dominant position
Beyond the amount claimed, the lawsuit focuses on describing how would the Steam system supposedly work to keep prices high and stop their rivals. The first front is the price parity or launch clauseswhich would prevent publishers and developers from offering their game cheaper, or earlier, on other digital stores such as Epic Games Store or GOG.
According to those arguments, if a title is released on Steam for £49,99, The agreements with Valve mean it cannot appear for less on competing platformsBy setting a common price floor, the demand argues that It neutralizes price-based competition., one of the classic mechanisms for alternatives to a dominant store to emerge.
The second piece of the puzzle is what is described as a "Blocking" effect around additional contentWhen a user buys a base game on Steam, the lawyers point out, He is forced to purchase all DLC and expansions through the same storeeven if they could be found cheaper through other services. This "forced linking" would reduce the ability of other distributors to compete in the add-ons market.
On that basis, the lawsuit accuses Valve of leverage a "dominant position" in the digital distribution of PC gamesSteam doesn't just act as a store: It's also a library, launcher, community system, social network, mod platform, and access point. almost automatic for thousands of launches. For the proponents of the case, That omnipresence would have made Steam virtually inevitable for any publisher that wants to seriously reach the computer audience.
Commissions, inflated prices and the impact on the European consumer
At the heart of the conflict lies a question that goes beyond the United Kingdom: Is it reasonable for a platform to keep up to 30% of each digital sale? The complaint against Valve points out that this type of commission is a historical standard in the video game industry, inherited from the era when consoles dominated with similar margins per physical copy sold.
However, for the plaintiff, The current state of the PC market and the role of Steam make that percentage disproportionate.It is argued that the operating costs of maintaining a large-scale digital store would not justify retaining a third of each transaction, especially in a context where There are competitors who charge lower commissions. or alternative models.
That margin, Shotbolt's lawyers insist, The studios don't absorb the cost at the expense of their profits; instead, it ends up being passed on to the price the user pays.Under this logic, the "Steam tax" would not be an abstract matter of business structure, but something that directly impacts How much does a game cost for any PC gamer in Europe?since pricing policies tend to follow similar patterns across the region, even though current demand is formally limited to British territory.
The documents submitted to the court also indicate that certain contractual conditions deemed "unfair" would have made it very difficult for other PC stores to compete on a level playing fieldThey mention obstacles to offering more aggressive promotions, differences in the release schedule, and the block resulting from having to keep buying add-ons for a title on Steam if the main game was purchased there.
Valve's defense strategy: Steam keys and economic methodology
Valve has not denied the importance of the case and has tried to to halt the procedure in its initial stagesIn the preliminary hearings, the company argued that the lawsuit lacked a "viable methodology" to demonstrate the alleged damage and questioned whether the affected markets and the true effective commission levels had been correctly defined.
One of the points the company has used most insistently in its defense is the Steam keysValve emphasizes that Provide these codes free of charge to developers and publishersallowing them to distribute their games through other channels (external stores, bundles, their own websites) while continuing to use Steam's infrastructure as a technical base for activations and updates.
From Valve's point of view, The intensive use of keys effectively reduces the average commission paid by its partners., since some copies of a game are sold outside the store itself, without Steam contributing that 30% in all final transactions. The problem is that, according to the company itself, There is no complete and accurate record of the volume and price of all distributed keys.which makes it difficult to accurately measure the real impact in economic terms.
The company has also criticized Shotbolt for has not clearly identified which Steam partners would have borne "unfair" prices or what the specific criteria would be for differentiating between reasonable and excessive fees. In its brief, Valve argues that the plaintiff has not presented a robust plan to quantify the damage nor to determine what part of the commission has effectively become an additional cost for the consumer.
Meanwhile, Valve insists that Steam competes with other stores and distribution channels, and that its commission would be justified by the infrastructure, tools and services that it makes available to studios and playersFrom servers and automatic updates to community systems, technical support, and development tools.
The British court allows the lawsuit to proceed.
Despite Valve's attempts to nip the case in the bud, the Competition Appeal Tribunal has decided that the claim has sufficient grounds to proceed as a collective action. The court has issued a Collective Proceedings Order (CPO), the order that formalizes this type of action with multiple affected parties in British law.
In practice, this means that The case enters a phase of more detailed analysis of evidence, economic models, and internal documentation., both from the plaintiff and from Valve. A date for the full trial has not yet been set.And it is expected that the process will last for years, with possible appeals and new rounds of allegations.
The court will also have to specify how the participation of affected users will be structuredIn these types of proceedings, it is common to have an option for those who consider themselves harmed to be included automatically, unless they expressly opt out, or to be required to register voluntarily. The outcome will depend on that decision. the final size of the group represented and the economic magnitude of the case.
Valve, for its part, maintains its approach: It argues that it has not violated competition regulations.that their practices are consistent with the market and that demand is based on unproven assumptions and "inadequate" methodologiesEven so, the court's refusal to close the proceedings represents a first setback for the company on this legal front.
One more front in the global pressure on the big platforms
The legal battle in the United Kingdom does not arise in a vacuum. Valve is already facing antitrust lawsuits in the United StatesSome of these lawsuits were initiated by studios such as Wolfire Games and Dark Catt Studios, which also question Steam's combination of commissions, market position, and contractual conditions.
In parallel, cases against Apple and Google over their app store commissions They have opened a broader debate about what major platforms can and cannot do when they become almost mandatory gateways to certain digital markets. Steam has traditionally enjoyed a more benevolent image among European PC gamersaccustomed to its regular sales and its immense catalog, but the British procedure requires a review of that perception under strictly legal and economic criteria.
For the video game industry in Europe, the British case is seen as a possible precedent on how "dominance" is assessed in digital storesIf the court concludes that certain clauses or percentages have been abusive, other national and EU authorities They could take note and open the door to similar investigations or regulatory changes that alter the rules of the game in online distribution.
Although the focus is currently on the United Kingdom, the practical scope of any eventual conviction would not necessarily be limited to its borders. Valve could be forced to rethink their contracts and commission structure on an international scaleThis would affect both large publishers and independent studios in Spain and the rest of Europe that depend on Steam to reach their audience.
However, there is a consensus that Resolutions in these types of lawsuits do not usually result in immediate price reductions.but rather in gradual adjustments to market conditions. Even so, the mere fact that Steam's model is being subjected to legal scrutiny is already considered a wake-up call for the entire industry.
Looking ahead, the UK case places Valve in one of the biggest legal challenges in its business historyWhat's at stake isn't just a multi-million dollar compensation, but the very way the relationship between platforms, developers, and players is understood within the PC ecosystem. How this conflict is resolved will largely determine... if the famous 30% and the current Steam clauses remain the norm or whether a stage of deeper changes opens up in the digital video game market.
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