The company was found to have violated antitrust laws.
The European Commission has fined six publishing giants for the geographic blockade steam key.
After investigating whether its website violated European antitrust rules, the European Community stated in a post on its website that it was fined 7.8 million dollars for Valve and Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax.
In short, the European Commission questioned the fact that publishers can set Steam keys to activate only in certain countries. This runs counter to the concept of the European digital single market.
Among the publishers fined, Valve was the only company that did not cooperate, and the company was fined 1,624,000 dollars. Capcom was reduced by 15% due to cooperation and was fined 396,000 dollars, while Bandai Namco, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax Media all reduced by 10%, paying 340,000 dollars, 2,888,000 dollars, 977,000 dollars and 1,664,000 dollars respectively.
“More than 50% of Europeans play video games,” said Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager.
“The video game industry in Europe is booming and is currently worth more than 17 billion dollars. Today, sanctions against Valve and five PC video game publishers’ “geoblocking” practices remind us that companies are prohibited from contracting under the EU competition law. Formal restrictions on cross-border sales. This practice deprives European consumers of the benefits of the EU digital single market, and also deprives the opportunity to shop around within the EU.”
Prior to this, the European Community was investigating events as of 2017 before conducting preliminary investigations. In April 2019, it reported that the aforementioned company violated antitrust laws.
