It looks like one of the biggest video game platforms on the planet has landed itself in some legal trouble. Based on a recent Bloomberg report, a US district court judge has ruled that Valve will have to face an anti-trust lawsuit for its Steam platform. On top of that, the same judge also rejected a claim that Steam and the Steam Store operate independently of one another.
The judge said that the company, “allegedly enforces this regime through a combination of written and unwritten rules.” The judge claimed that Valve does this by imposing its own conditions on the pricing and sale of both Steam and non-Steam-enabled games. This caused Judge Coughenour to say that these allegations are sufficient enough to “plausibly allege unlawful conduct.”
This ruling comes a year after Wolfire Games filed an anti-trust lawsuit claim against the video game streaming giant. In April 2021, Wolfire sued Valve after alleging the company used its dominant position in the PC gaming market to “exploit publishers and consumers.” Valve filed for dismissal of the anti-trust lawsuit in July, causing the case to eventually be thrown out that November. However, the ruling allowed Wolfrie to file another complaint addressing the issue 30 days after this decision was reached, which the company obviously did.
It’ll certainly be interesting to see what the next steps are in this lawsuit and how this will impact one of the most popular gaming companies in the world.
(All information was provided by Bloomberg Law and Gamesindustry.biz)
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