Millions of gamers could get compensation if the lawsuit - which accuses Valve of charging inflated prices - succeeds.

Valve Corporation will face a £656m lawsuit in the UK over alleged unfair prices on its global online store, Steam, following a tribunal ruling that the case could continue.

The gaming giant is being accused of abusing its market dominance by imposing restrictive terms on game publishers and locking players into using Steam, the world’s largest distribution platform for PC gaming.

The legal action was brought by digital rights campaigner Vicki Shotbolt in 2024 on behalf of up to 14 million Steam users across the UK, who could be in line for compensation if she wins.

  • ampersandrew@lemmy.worldEnglish
    24·
    5 days ago

    …is there any platform where this is not the case for paid content? I guess for anything that has additional content available on GoG this is technically true by virtue of it lacking DRM, but where else would you even buy it in that case? Is there some other DRM-free platform from which I can buy Blood and Wine and drop it into my GoG version of Witcher III?

    I’d certainly love to see this precedent set and apply to literally every platform, but yeah, Valve’s doing nothing unique here. And changing the law around these things could require games to change the way they’re made…the only way it seems possible to me is if every version of the game is DRM-free, but that might have the side effect of encouraging games to only launch on one platform (and that one platform would be Steam, making this problem worse).

    • Demdaru@lemmy.worldEnglish
      61·
      5 days ago

      Every game version has third-party, kernel level DRM that locks the acquisition to your net ID, barring you from downloading it on any other device. Here, done :3