European Commission to investigate Valve

Fanboys report for duty.

Moderators: GreyWizzard, pilonv1

Post Reply
User avatar
GameHED
10000 words or your money back!
10000 words or your money back!
Posts: 13228
Joined: 05 Jul 2006 01:14 pm
Location: Brisbane, QLD, AU

European Commission to investigate Valve

Post by GameHED »

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017- ... o-blocking" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 02/02/2017

The European Commission has announced plans to investigate Valve and five PC game publishers over suspected anti-competitive practices.

The Commission wants to work out whether the companies are in breach of EU antitrust rules by preventing consumers from enjoying cross-border choice.

The suspicion is that agreements between Valve and the publishers break EU competition rules by unfairly restricting retail prices or by excluding customers from certain offers because of their nationality or location.

Digging into the detail of the investigation, the Commission is looking at bilateral agreements between Valve and five publishers: Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and Zenimax.

The investigation concerns geo-blocking practices, where companies prevent consumers from using digital content, in this case PC video games, because of the consumer's location or country of residence.

The Commission wants to find out whether the agreements between Valve and the publishers require the use of activation keys for the purpose of geo-blocking.

Say, for example, you receive an error message from Steam when trying to activate a game with a region ID different to that of your local account. According to the European Commission, that's in breach of its antitrust rules.

Here's the EU Commission:
In particular, an "activation key" can grant access to a purchased game only to consumers in a particular EU Member State (for example the Czech Republic or Poland).
This may amount to a breach of EU competition rules by reducing cross-border competition as a result of restricting so-called "parallel trade" within the Single Market and preventing consumers from buying cheaper games that may be available in other Member States.

The Commission has just opened formal proceedings, and it noted there's no legal deadline for bringing the investigation to an end, so it could go on for quite a while, depending on the complexity of the case and the cooperation of the companies involved.

If it rules Valve and the publishers are in breach of its rules, the EU Commission could open the door to gamers legally buying games in another EU country's online store at potentially cheaper prices.

In terms of its impact on UK users of Steam, in a pre-Brexit world we fall under the EU antitrust rules, but in a post-Brexit world, we may not benefit from the Commission's ruling, whatever it may be.
More affordable gaming can only be a good thing.

Candy Arse can't disagree with this.

Nintendo should be the only company to get away with high prices since their games don't suck like the average pc game with bugs that wreck your computer and come with viruses and spy on you as if you are some criminal by default.

Have fun trying to move this to the conspiracy thread. It's about Valve ripping everyone off and it's games related. It's a conspiracy as well as games related so I can post to any of the two threads. Dumb Valve nuthugger... :down: :D
No wonder europeans have to pirate games so much. The originals are too expensive thanks to Valve keeping prices too high for poor people to afford them. (also why witcher 3 devlopers needed to make the game for console to make a profit in order to survive. PC gamers are cannibalising the game industry imo)

PC gamers:
-entitled brats that want everything for free
-hack games so they can put nude mods in everything destroying the esports scene
-trying to import stupid shit into console scene like having to download 400 patches to your game before you even have a chance to play.

Argh they need their own forum. I don't want to be around them as society thinks I am a criminal like them just being associated with them in the same place.
"aahhh so you like pc games do you? I bet you download your games from Steam the service that valve supports?"

"uh yeah. Steam is cool"

"My father worked for Valve and they were caught ripping off customers by overcharging for games. He killed himself once everyone found out he is a criminal. Don't tell in public you like steam, it will get you bashed up by europeans"

Best to place these pc guys in freemasons imo. But the site admin won't listen to my suggestions as usual. Candy must have something to blackmail him with. Still can't figure out how he hasn't been banned. (talking about nintendo roms on pc which discourages people to buy HD remaster of Zelda games. That's illegal stuff in public forum. How does he do that?)
"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad." -Shigeru Miyamoto
User avatar
Candy Arse
Elite Ginger
Posts: 20292
Joined: 04 Jul 2006 08:41 am

Re: European Commission to investigate Valve

Post by Candy Arse »

GameHED wrote: More affordable gaming can only be a good thing.
GameHED wrote:
PC gamers:
-entitled brats that want everything for free
Yep - another shit GameHED thread where he contradicts himself in his own post :io:
User avatar
GameHED
10000 words or your money back!
10000 words or your money back!
Posts: 13228
Joined: 05 Jul 2006 01:14 pm
Location: Brisbane, QLD, AU

Re: European Commission to investigate Valve

Post by GameHED »

Fair prices that keep opponents competitive and strong is not the same as letting peple have shit for free just because they feel entitled to take things off others against their will.

Learn the difference.

In a free market you survive by offering the best deal and if you can profit and customers come to you, then you meet demand. If you overprice shit, you lessen demand and in a survival of the fittest system, that means you die or suffer from less business.

This is how most people want the system to be.
Not one where you cause people to HAVE to pirate because your prices are ridiculous.
Nintendo can get away with it because fans love their content so much. Not their fault people are addicted to pokemon and mario.
It's your fault however when you pirate their roms on your pc and claim to be a fan when in reality you are just encouraging kids to buy a pc and steal their games.

That's why everyone is scared to release their games to pc only. They know pc gamers are going to take the shit free so they settle for putting the prices cheap on steam because that's all they could get away with on that platform. Not so on console where there are less criminals. We the console gamers are the superior ones.

Why else have we not died off yet despite PC game platform having superior specs? Because we are superior people. So we compensate for the low specs of console where you have to react to danger at half the framerate whereas you less skilled pc gamers need 60frames and above and much higher resolution due to lack of skills.
You've become whiney, and weak and entitled. It has spoiled you rotten and made you soft. That is why kids hav e very little skill these days and can't even beat easy challenges in games today. Your kind is breeding a generation of retards that will not survive the future. From henceforth you will be nick-named "the anita sarkesian generation" of gamers. You are as fake a gamer as the sorcerer's gigantic titties in Dragon's Crown.
"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad." -Shigeru Miyamoto
User avatar
lestat
Pixel Count Lestat
Pixel Count Lestat
Posts: 12710
Joined: 03 Jul 2006 11:15 pm
XBL ID: grlestat
PSN ID: grlestat
Steam ID: grlestat
Friend Code: SW-5550-6241-2054
EpicGS ID: grlestat
Battle.net ID: grlestat#1153
Location: Sydney
Contact:

Re: European Commission to investigate Valve

Post by lestat »

I just want valve to charge in AUD ffs. Some of the stuff priced in USD at $69-79 is way more than AU retail prices.

But these days I tend to just buy most of my stuff from cdkey sites, steam prices are crap most of the time.
Post Reply