It seems Valve and five publishers have attracted the attention of the EU, as they claim they're breaching EU competition rules. In particular, what the EU say they're doing goes against the "Regulation 2018/302" introduced on December 3rd last year.
The statement from the European Commission, available here, mentions that they've sent Statements of Objections to Valve and Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax.
The main concerns from the EU are these:
- Valve and the five PC video game publishers agreed, in breach of EU antitrust rules, to use geo-blocked activation keys to prevent cross-border sales, including in response to unsolicited consumer requests (so-called “passive sales”) of PC video games from several Member States (i.e. Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and in some cases Romania). This may have prevented consumers from buying cheaper games available in other Member States.
- Bandai Namco, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax, broke EU antitrust rules by including contractual export restrictions in their agreements with a number of distributors other than Valve. These distributors were prevented from selling the relevant PC video games outside the allocated territories, which could cover one or more Member States. These practices may have prevented consumers from purchasing and playing PC video games sold by these distributors either on physical media, such as DVDs or through downloads.
Valve just sent out a statement, here's what they said in full for those interested:
Earlier today, the European Commission ("EC") sent Statements of Objections ("SO") to Valve and five publishers in an investigation that it started in 2013. The EC alleges that the five publishers entered into agreements with their distributors that included geo-blocking provisions for PC games sold by the distributors, and that separately Valve entered into agreements with the same publishers that prevented consumers in the European Economic Area ("EEA") from purchasing PC games because of their location.
However, the EC's charges do not relate to the sale of PC games on Steam - Valve's PC gaming service. Instead the EC alleges that Valve enabled geo-blocking by providing Steam activation keys and - upon the publishers' request - locking those keys to particular territories ("region locks") within the EEA. Such keys allow a customer to activate and play a game on Steam when the user has purchased it from a third-party reseller. Valve provides Steam activation keys free of charge and does not receive any share of the purchase price when a game is sold by third-party resellers (such as a retailer or other online store).
The region locks only applied to a small number of game titles. Approximately just 3% of all games using Steam (and none of Valve's own games) at the time were subject to the contested region locks in the EEA. Valve believes that the EC's extension of liability to a platform provider in these circumstances is not supported by applicable law. Nonetheless, because of the EC's concerns, Valve actually turned off region locks within the EEA starting in 2015, unless those region locks were necessary for local legal requirements (such as German content laws) or geographic limits on where the Steam partner is licensed to distribute a game. The elimination of region locks will also mean that publishers will likely raise prices in less affluent regions to avoid price arbitrage. There are no costs involved in sending activation keys from one country to another and the activation key is all a user needs to activate and play a PC game.
Basically, the EU wants to prevent stores and publishers from making it so that you can't get your games cheaper if you choose to shop in a different country. It can be a pretty difficult topic, certainly one with a lot of complications. The issue gets complicated, since publishers may want to offer certain countries a cheaper price if their wages are traditionally lower but they might not do that if anyone is able to come along and just pay the cheaper price.
What are your thoughts on this?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Games are not cheaper in EU member countries that are not in the eurozone - that's the problem, the *lack* of sufficient regional pricing.
Sorry, you're right (read steamdb data far too quickly)! In which currency peoples from countries that are EU members but not in Eurozone buy their games on Steam? :|
Romanian here, Our currency is Leu/RON but we buy the games in Euros from Steam and that kinda sucks if the Euro goes up we have to pay a bit more.
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I'm not completely in disagreement, but I think we do have very concrete examples of nations in the EU attempting to do people-friendly policies and the EU blocking them, the most obvious one being the crushing of Greece when Syriza caved to massive blackmail.[snip]
The EU acts pretty much like a nation already in the sense that it certainly caters only to the interest of its ruling elite. You know...like any other nation. There is not one single nation on Earth not like that. They ALL care only for the 1%. That's really not an argument against the EU. It's an argument for reform and change, and for going to elections and vote these people out.
I would want to argue that there are degrees, and on average the farther the decision-makers are from those affected by their decisions, the harder it is to get them to take people's interests into account. EU decision-makers have a ton of distance, whether geographical or more importantly institutional.
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What's the confusing part? You cannot have a single market if players can segment said market into sections of their own making. Either you sell to the whole EU as a single market or you don't sell at all.The thing is I don't care how thorough the EU single market is, since I don't have an ideological preference for such things. Sure, the EU is a single market as a matter of fact, and sure, that status is important to many EU bureaucrats. But that isn't a statement about what policy is good for people in the EU. You could perfectly well have policies which violated or attenuated that status but were good policies.
And even if the EU were an actual country that wouldn't preclude the possibility of trade barriers between sub-units; there are trade barriers and "buy local" policies in Canadian provinces and even municipalities. They're not huge, but they're there.
The single market is not important to "many EU bureaucrats", it's one of the fundamental blocks of the whole EU. If the single market is deemed bad policy then this have to be changed through the normal political chain (elections and so forth) but as it stands now the "law is the law" so it's not like the people enforcing the regulation can look the other way just because they feel personally that the outcome might be bad for the people in the EU, that is for the voters and then the politicians to decide.
Just googled around for your interprovincial trade barriers in Canada and I must say that the vast majority of results where from people and organisations that talked about how much problem they cause. Now I know nothing about the state of this in Canada but it sure sounds crazy.
Last edited by F.Ultra on 5 April 2019 at 11:15 pm UTC
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The reality is that most people don't give a damn or really notice them. They are small, and mainly exist for fairly limited local goals. However, right wing politicians have to have something to call out. We've already got free trade with practically everybody, and they've already killed most of the social programs that don't have massive public support. So there have been some cases of provincial pols getting a bee in their bonnet about the horrors of provincial trade barriers so they can have something to campaign on. Nobody else said anything because, like, whatever, eh?What's the confusing part? You cannot have a single market if players can segment said market into sections of their own making. Either you sell to the whole EU as a single market or you don't sell at all.The thing is I don't care how thorough the EU single market is, since I don't have an ideological preference for such things. Sure, the EU is a single market as a matter of fact, and sure, that status is important to many EU bureaucrats. But that isn't a statement about what policy is good for people in the EU. You could perfectly well have policies which violated or attenuated that status but were good policies.
And even if the EU were an actual country that wouldn't preclude the possibility of trade barriers between sub-units; there are trade barriers and "buy local" policies in Canadian provinces and even municipalities. They're not huge, but they're there.
The single market is not important to "many EU bureaucrats", it's one of the fundamental blocks of the whole EU. If the single market is deemed bad policy then this have to be changed through the normal political chain (elections and so forth) but as it stands now the "law is the law" so it's not like the people enforcing the regulation can look the other way just because they feel personally that the outcome might be bad for the people in the EU, that is for the voters and then the politicians to decide.
Just googled around for your interprovincial trade barriers in Canada and I must say that the vast majority of results where from people and organisations that talked about how much problem they cause. Now I know nothing about the state of this in Canada but it sure sounds crazy.
But the reality is that there has never been such a thing as completely barrier-free trade; there probably never will be. The argument basically can't be over whether there will be barriers, but about how big and what the barriers will be.
So I don't find the claim persuasive that somehow if any barrier exists the status of the EU as a common market will implode in a puff of logic. There are surely barriers now, some more formal than others. There will be barriers next year and ten years from now, no matter what decisions get made about this particular one.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 5 April 2019 at 11:27 pm UTC
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The reality is that most people don't give a damn or really notice them. They are small, and mainly exist for fairly limited local goals. However, right wing politicians have to have something to call out. We've already got free trade with practically everybody, and they've already killed most of the social programs that don't have massive public support. So there have been some cases of provincial pols getting a bee in their bonnet about the horrors of provincial trade barriers so they can have something to campaign on.What's the confusing part? You cannot have a single market if players can segment said market into sections of their own making. Either you sell to the whole EU as a single market or you don't sell at all.The thing is I don't care how thorough the EU single market is, since I don't have an ideological preference for such things. Sure, the EU is a single market as a matter of fact, and sure, that status is important to many EU bureaucrats. But that isn't a statement about what policy is good for people in the EU. You could perfectly well have policies which violated or attenuated that status but were good policies.
And even if the EU were an actual country that wouldn't preclude the possibility of trade barriers between sub-units; there are trade barriers and "buy local" policies in Canadian provinces and even municipalities. They're not huge, but they're there.
The single market is not important to "many EU bureaucrats", it's one of the fundamental blocks of the whole EU. If the single market is deemed bad policy then this have to be changed through the normal political chain (elections and so forth) but as it stands now the "law is the law" so it's not like the people enforcing the regulation can look the other way just because they feel personally that the outcome might be bad for the people in the EU, that is for the voters and then the politicians to decide.
Just googled around for your interprovincial trade barriers in Canada and I must say that the vast majority of results where from people and organisations that talked about how much problem they cause. Now I know nothing about the state of this in Canada but it sure sounds crazy.
But the reality is that there has never been such a thing as completely barrier-free trade; there probably never will be. The argument basically can't be over whether there will be barriers, but about how big and what the barriers will be.
So I don't find the claim persuasive that somehow if any barrier exists the status of the EU as a common market will implode in a puff of logic. There are surely barriers now, some more formal than others. There will be barriers next year and ten years from now, no matter what decisions get made about this particular one.
Okey I can buy that. On top of that, if you somehow can use those barriers to keep Jordan Peterson locked inside Canada then I will unconditionally endorse your interprovincial trade barriers any day of the week!
1 Likes, Who?
I would certainly endorse performing that international service!The reality is that most people don't give a damn or really notice them. They are small, and mainly exist for fairly limited local goals. However, right wing politicians have to have something to call out. We've already got free trade with practically everybody, and they've already killed most of the social programs that don't have massive public support. So there have been some cases of provincial pols getting a bee in their bonnet about the horrors of provincial trade barriers so they can have something to campaign on.What's the confusing part? You cannot have a single market if players can segment said market into sections of their own making. Either you sell to the whole EU as a single market or you don't sell at all.The thing is I don't care how thorough the EU single market is, since I don't have an ideological preference for such things. Sure, the EU is a single market as a matter of fact, and sure, that status is important to many EU bureaucrats. But that isn't a statement about what policy is good for people in the EU. You could perfectly well have policies which violated or attenuated that status but were good policies.
And even if the EU were an actual country that wouldn't preclude the possibility of trade barriers between sub-units; there are trade barriers and "buy local" policies in Canadian provinces and even municipalities. They're not huge, but they're there.
The single market is not important to "many EU bureaucrats", it's one of the fundamental blocks of the whole EU. If the single market is deemed bad policy then this have to be changed through the normal political chain (elections and so forth) but as it stands now the "law is the law" so it's not like the people enforcing the regulation can look the other way just because they feel personally that the outcome might be bad for the people in the EU, that is for the voters and then the politicians to decide.
Just googled around for your interprovincial trade barriers in Canada and I must say that the vast majority of results where from people and organisations that talked about how much problem they cause. Now I know nothing about the state of this in Canada but it sure sounds crazy.
But the reality is that there has never been such a thing as completely barrier-free trade; there probably never will be. The argument basically can't be over whether there will be barriers, but about how big and what the barriers will be.
So I don't find the claim persuasive that somehow if any barrier exists the status of the EU as a common market will implode in a puff of logic. There are surely barriers now, some more formal than others. There will be barriers next year and ten years from now, no matter what decisions get made about this particular one.
Okey I can buy that. On top of that, if you somehow can use those barriers to keep Jordan Peterson locked inside Canada then I will unconditionally endorse your interprovincial trade barriers any day of the week!
1 Likes, Who?
I would certainly endorse performing that international service!The reality is that most people don't give a damn or really notice them. They are small, and mainly exist for fairly limited local goals. However, right wing politicians have to have something to call out. We've already got free trade with practically everybody, and they've already killed most of the social programs that don't have massive public support. So there have been some cases of provincial pols getting a bee in their bonnet about the horrors of provincial trade barriers so they can have something to campaign on.What's the confusing part? You cannot have a single market if players can segment said market into sections of their own making. Either you sell to the whole EU as a single market or you don't sell at all.The thing is I don't care how thorough the EU single market is, since I don't have an ideological preference for such things. Sure, the EU is a single market as a matter of fact, and sure, that status is important to many EU bureaucrats. But that isn't a statement about what policy is good for people in the EU. You could perfectly well have policies which violated or attenuated that status but were good policies.
And even if the EU were an actual country that wouldn't preclude the possibility of trade barriers between sub-units; there are trade barriers and "buy local" policies in Canadian provinces and even municipalities. They're not huge, but they're there.
The single market is not important to "many EU bureaucrats", it's one of the fundamental blocks of the whole EU. If the single market is deemed bad policy then this have to be changed through the normal political chain (elections and so forth) but as it stands now the "law is the law" so it's not like the people enforcing the regulation can look the other way just because they feel personally that the outcome might be bad for the people in the EU, that is for the voters and then the politicians to decide.
Just googled around for your interprovincial trade barriers in Canada and I must say that the vast majority of results where from people and organisations that talked about how much problem they cause. Now I know nothing about the state of this in Canada but it sure sounds crazy.
But the reality is that there has never been such a thing as completely barrier-free trade; there probably never will be. The argument basically can't be over whether there will be barriers, but about how big and what the barriers will be.
So I don't find the claim persuasive that somehow if any barrier exists the status of the EU as a common market will implode in a puff of logic. There are surely barriers now, some more formal than others. There will be barriers next year and ten years from now, no matter what decisions get made about this particular one.
Okey I can buy that. On top of that, if you somehow can use those barriers to keep Jordan Peterson locked inside Canada then I will unconditionally endorse your interprovincial trade barriers any day of the week!
Me Happy :-)
As a small side note to this whole "debate", the main problem here is not that EU is trying to remove social programs, the problem is that major parts of Europe is now controlled by conservative governments and this have shifted the EU policies to the right. Aka EU is not right leaning conservative by definition, it's just how the European political map looks right now and is why things like Article 11 and 13 is passed (since the majority of the member states voted yes).
edit: I realise that this can be seen as hardcode nit-picking but my issue is that the Internet is so full of the Putin sponsored alt-right groups that are arguing for the dismemberment of the EU that I feel that it's important to distinguish between EU politics and European politics if that makes sense, or in other words the problem is not with the EU as such but with Europe as a whole.
Last edited by F.Ultra on 5 April 2019 at 11:48 pm UTC
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I looking at larger perspective. Let's say EC wanted game prices as single, cheaper price basing on EUR. Perhaps €30-40 flat across EEA?
IMO. if EU really asking for "Dieselgate 2.0" to happen if they keeps too nosey like this. Which industry I dunno..
p/s: Also, at least y'all still have rights to criticise. If I done that, probably Black Maria will be infront my house later.
IMO. if EU really asking for "Dieselgate 2.0" to happen if they keeps too nosey like this. Which industry I dunno..
p/s: Also, at least y'all still have rights to criticise. If I done that, probably Black Maria will be infront my house later.
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slaapliedje Apr 6, 2019
Geoblocking has been rife across the entertainment industries for years. I hope it won't end here and that Hollywood is next. Somehow I doubt it because, as we have seen from the Copyright Directive, the EC is up Hollywood's arse.Yeah, the one that gets me is they stopped releasing the 3D version of movies in the US, so I have to import them from UK if I want them.
I know, first world problems.
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The EU is in that fuzzy "not yet a nation, but not individual states anymore either" state. It's written goal actually IS full confederation one day. It's taking a while, because there are too many dumbass nationalists around that don't understand the "the sum is greater than its parts" thing.
That's quite a naive interpretation. People like that are a convenient excuse for the western (mainly german) capital to maintain the status quo. Here in Hungary for example, the marriage between the state and the german auto industry takes on such insane size that these german companies pay virtually no taxes, get funded up to 50% for building factories, and get away with paying their employees less even in a regional comparison.
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There is much misunderstanding of what EU is in the comments. I don't know enough about the cases mentioned by Valve but this "single market" thing has two sides. If you wanted to buy, let's say, a mobile phone from a web store in Germany not so long ago (where prices tend to be lower) you were prevented to do so (if you were from somewhere else). This is, if I am informed correctly, illegal now (there are ways to still do it but let's not get into it).
The negative side is not allowing regional pricing. It will never happen that the price of a game will be tailored for E European standard of living but rather of German one where they sell the most and have the highest profit. And so the prices go up. And so does piracy.
The message is: just leave E Europe alone if you don't care about selling for a reasonable price but don't complain about piracy, ok? Ok!
The negative side is not allowing regional pricing. It will never happen that the price of a game will be tailored for E European standard of living but rather of German one where they sell the most and have the highest profit. And so the prices go up. And so does piracy.
The message is: just leave E Europe alone if you don't care about selling for a reasonable price but don't complain about piracy, ok? Ok!
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huwjenjinn Apr 6, 2019
Geo-blocking is BS, so for once the EU is in the right of it with their demands.
In Canada, the price for a game is the same across the country, whether you're in Ontario or the Yukon (barring GST/PST/HST differences, similar to VAT).
In the US, same deal - it doesn't matter what state you're in, the price of a game is the price of that game.
The article lists some EU member states in the Eurozone and some that aren't - sure, the requirement for currency exchange tends to mean there are winners and losers on the price difference... but isn't the point of the EU the whole 'single market' thing? So set the price of a game in Euro, let non-Eurozone-but-still-EU members buy it for whatever that converts to in their local currency, and otherwise treat the EU as a single 'country'.
Yes, let poor people pay the same so people will migrate to richer zones! \s
The EU is not a single country, it's just a weak union. The EU countries doesn't have a shared tax collection and they wouldn't share it anyway because it would hurt richer countries very badly.
You do realise you are saying that we should trust for-profit organisations to lower their prices for the benefit of less well off consumers? Really? Since when has social charity been part of their shareholder remit?
The EC is absolutely correct in it's application of it's own rules. If you disagree with those rules then don't join the club. But, I suspect, those "poorer" countries are doing rather well out of the club elsewhere.
Last edited by huwjenjinn on 6 April 2019 at 8:15 am UTC
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I bought Rise of the Tomb Raider on Steam when I was living in country A. Then I moved to country B and the game was completely removed from my account, I couldn't install it anymore. At that point I just felt robbed of 40$.
And I don't even know why it was removed, I had bought other games during that time and they were still there. Then I moved to country C and the game was back again. WTF ?
I just don't understand what's going on, as far as I know the game is available on Steam in all 3 countries and the versions are identical. There must be some random legal issue but from a consumer standpoint that whole thing is very opaque. The fact that Steam can forcibly remove games I've paid for from my accounts already irks me, but it's even worse when they don't tell me why they are doing so. DRM at its worst.
Last edited by Gazoche on 6 April 2019 at 10:30 am UTC
And I don't even know why it was removed, I had bought other games during that time and they were still there. Then I moved to country C and the game was back again. WTF ?
I just don't understand what's going on, as far as I know the game is available on Steam in all 3 countries and the versions are identical. There must be some random legal issue but from a consumer standpoint that whole thing is very opaque. The fact that Steam can forcibly remove games I've paid for from my accounts already irks me, but it's even worse when they don't tell me why they are doing so. DRM at its worst.
Last edited by Gazoche on 6 April 2019 at 10:30 am UTC
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The whole thing (i.e. Valve getting called out by the EU for this) sounds like a tempest in a teapot.
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I looking at larger perspective. Let's say EC wanted game prices as single, cheaper price basing on EUR. Perhaps €30-40 flat across EEA?
IMO. if EU really asking for "Dieselgate 2.0" to happen if they keeps too nosey like this. Which industry I dunno..
p/s: Also, at least y'all still have rights to criticise. If I done that, probably Black Maria will be infront my house later.
The EU does not want a single price throughout the whole of EU, this is about allowing products and services to be sold and exchanged freely across the single EU market. They are not against regional pricing.
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[Lots of very true things that I fully agree on].Well, as a former and future Ubisoft employee (I quit Unity to go back to Ubisoft), can I tell you that you may be slightly biased?
I have no sympathy for the likes of EA/Ubisoft/Activision-Blizzard/etc., though, who abuse the crap out of their employees and give their execs multi million dollar salaries and bonuses.
The working life at Ubisoft (Montréal) is honestly pretty cool. Of course your mileage may vary depending on your experience, but you do have pretty nice stuff like access to a gym and a private hospital directly in the buildings. You have a very nice social coverage. And all the employees get bonuses (obviously depending on some condition like, for instance, the game has to be profitable).
Obviously, it is not just rainbows and unicorns there, and I would say the main reason for that is simply that, just in Ubisoft Montréal, there are more than 3000 employees. It is tremendously hard to keep a human touch when reaching these numbers. Though it's not a reason not to try, and I know for a fact that Ubisoft is trying.
Last edited by Creak on 6 April 2019 at 4:47 pm UTC
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On one hand this is an outright fishing expedition :Straight up extortion? It's the government. It gets to impose penalties on individuals and corporations if they break the law, such as jail, fines and so on. It gets to investigate to find out if they've done so. It does not have time limits after which it has to agree to illegal behaviour if it didn't notice or figure it out soon enough. What about any of this is supposed to be news?
The Commission will carry out a first evaluation of the Regulation by 23 March 2020.
...
There is no legal deadline for the Commission to complete antitrust inquiries into anticompetitive conduct.
And perhaps the most wtf of them all (staight up extortion):
If, after the parties have exercised their rights of defence, the Commission concludes that there is sufficient evidence of an infringement, it can adopt a decision prohibiting the conduct and imposing a fine of up to 10% of a company's annual worldwide turnover.
.. on the other, I'm a bit confused about Valve's reply as it does still apply to gifting. I was blocked from buying a game in Canada for a freind in the US. That is with paying in USD.
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The EU does not want a single price throughout the whole of EU, this is about allowing products and services to be sold and exchanged freely across the single EU market. They are not against regional pricing.Understood and noted. But IMO, it sounds more like forcing to sells in one price across EU. That's my interpretation, not expert in EU laws or anything EU in general.
Let's say I'm not a big fan with current EU system right now, for many reasons. So, my opinion kinda skeptical here and there on EU.
But again, what I learned from history is... Any actions will have reactions.
So, if EU still being so busybody like this, I confidently said other pissed governments/entities ensure "Dieselgate 2.0" will certainly happens. And I ensure you, it will be worst than "the Dieselgate" now.
Just we don't know yet which industry will be "jackpotted"..
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The EU does not want a single price throughout the whole of EU, this is about allowing products and services to be sold and exchanged freely across the single EU market. They are not against regional pricing.Understood and noted. But IMO, it sounds more like forcing to sells in one price across EU. That's my interpretation, not expert in EU laws or anything EU in general.
Let's say I'm not a big fan with current EU system right now, for many reasons. So, my opinion kinda skeptical here and there on EU.
But again, what I learned from history is... Any actions will have reactions.
So, if EU still being so busybody like this, I confidently said other pissed governments/entities ensure "Dieselgate 2.0" will certainly happens. And I ensure you, it will be worst than "the Dieselgate" now.
Just we don't know yet which industry will be "jackpotted"..
Again, price is not something that the EU is looking at what so ever, this is only about geo-blocking on the second hand market.
So VW put a NOx-related defeat device in their test cars in order to bypass emission regulations, what on earth does that have to do with EU finding Valve and the 5 other companies breaching the anti geo-blocking regulations other than in both cases a company is found (or in this case, possible found since this is just a preliminary finding) breaching regulations?
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