Comment on Valve and five PC games publishers fined $9.4M for illegal geo-blocking

A four-year antitrust investigation into PC games geo-blocking in the European Union by distribution platform Valve and five games publishers has led to fines totalling €7.8 million (~$9.4M) after the Commission confirmed today that the bloc’s rules had been breached. The geo-blocking practices investigated since 2017 concerned around 100 PC video games of different genres, including sports, simulation and action games. In addition to Valve — which has been fined just over €1.6M — the five sanctioned games publishers are: Bandai Namco (fined €340k), Capcom (€396k), Focus Home (€2.8M), Koch Media (€977k) and ZeniMax (€1.6M). The Commission said the fines were reduced by between 10% and 15% owing to cooperation from the companies, with the exception of Valve who it said chose not to cooperate (a “prohibition Decision” rather than a fine reduction was applied in its case). Valve has been contacted for comment. The antitrust investigation begun in February 2017, with a formal statement of objections issued just over two years later when the Commission accused the companies of “entering into bilateral agreements to prevent consumers from purchasing and using PC video games acquired elsewhere than in their country of residence” in contravention of EU rules. EU goes after Valve for ‘geo-blocking’ Steam activation codes The mechanisms used by the companies to prevent certain cross-border sales of certain PC games were geo-blocked Steam activation keys and bilateral licensing and distribution agreements to restrict certain cross-border sales. EU lawmakers has now found that these business practices partitioned certain European markets according to national borders — denying regional consumers the benefits of the EU’s Digital Single Market to shop around for the best offer. Commenting in a statement, EVP Margrethe Vestager, who heads up competition policy for the bloc, said: “Today’s sanctions against the ‘geo-blocking’ practices of Valve and five PC video game publishers serve as a reminder that under EU competition law, companies are prohibited from contractually restricting cross-border sales.