The European Commission has announced that it will impose fines on Valve, Capcom, Zenimax, Bandai Namco, Focus Home and Koch Media. Six publishing giants have been part of the investigation since 2017, and according to the commission, they violated competition rules and EU antitrust regulations. In particular, there is an infringement of the regulation on the prohibition of geoblocation. The amount of the fine was set at less than EUR 8 million. The European Commission published a press release, which was then reported by the VG server 24/7.
In short, in this case, geoblock allows publishers to set game keys so that they can only be activated in the selected state. However, this goes against the concept of a European digital single market. The Commission’s aim is to remove the barriers that companies place, thereby reducing online trade between Member States. According to the European Commission, restrictions in the form of geoblock “apply to more than 100 computer games of various genres.”
“The video game industry in Europe is prospering, currently worth € 17 billion. Today’s sanctions, against geoblocation by Valve and five other computer game publishers, serve as a reminder that European competition law does not allow companies to contractually restrict cross-border sales. Such practices deprive European consumers of the benefits of the European digital single market and the opportunity to find the best deal in the EU. “
Most of the fine will be paid by Focus Home, ie 2.8 million euros, which, like other companies, cooperated with the European Commission. The exception was allegedly Valve, who refused to cooperate and would still pay “only” 1.6 million euros. However, in a statement provided by a Valve spokesperson to Eurogamer, they deny this and claim that they cooperated, but only disagree with the European Commission’s findings:
“Regional locks concern a small proportion of game titles. That’s about 3% of all games that use Steam (none of them are from Valve). Valve believes that the transfer of responsibility to the platform provider is not legally enforceable. However, due to concerns of the European Commission, Valve removed the lock in 2015 in the EU, except in regions where local legal requirements (Germany and their content laws) need to be complied with or geographical limits where the Steam partner is licensed to distribute games. “
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