Valve and others fined by the European Commission for 'geo-blocking' (updated)

The way I see it, this whole thing will led to increase in prices on poorer countries in the EU. Simple as that. Some commenters, however, talk about companies should obey laws without seeing the big picture. And I bet those are not the ones that will pay more for their games.

One is not seeing the big picture if one thinks companies should obey the law? I believe You are not seeing the big picture if You complain about price increases in poor countries from a unified European market while failing to consider the wealth increase this market and the measures taken towards it have brought to the country. There is more to this EU deal than just billions of free subsidies paid by northern europeans.

Also, aybe the ones complaining are not the ones that will pay more, but that means they are the ones that are already paying more. This mentality of entitlement is baffling. If income levels in a country are not high enough to pay enough for a game to fund its development, these people have zero right to demand their prices being subsidized by other people in higher GDP countries.

You talk like someone with money in your pocket. Good for you.

To hell with the poor and their problems. Let them go back to piracy, were they belong.

Honestly as a European I don't dislike the single market. The implementation though is sloppy in multiple ways. But it would be unfair to deny that it improved over the years and it will likely improve more in future.

Currently my biggest complaint is more about digital content than for physical objects. Geoblocking was forbidden like 3 tears ago, but only for physical goods. In this case VGs are treated like physical objects (don't ask me why) so in Bruxelles they are adamant with their stance (and it makes sense: phisycal stuff has to be shipped and this levels the field. Only that VGs are not shipped at all). But actual digital content is infact still exempted from geo-blocking within the EU (which is nuts if you think about it). So for example on German Netflix you won't be able to see Spanish or French Netflix stuff and viceversa. Which for me, personally, sucks a lot. So yeah, my biggest issue right now is more about "availability of content" rather than mere price. The same way I purchase abroad what I don't find in the national shops. It's the usual copyright bullshit the EU is in love to. Remember the meme thing?

Regarding the price issue (which is also a very real issue), in theory this should be fixed by better redistributing the wealth among the union. There are purchasing power regional differences in every market yet uniformed prices work anyway. Just because of this. But the country with "The Positive Trade Balance" tm is very receptive on several fairness topics but not this one. So I don't see the EU changing their policies anytime soon. Shame. This considered, regional prices are imho a kind of a necessary adjustment for fairness until the real issue isn't properly addressed. Again, take Netflix as an example. Since they are currently exempt from geoblocking they do use regional pricing in EU and it works wonders: they're unreasonably overpriced everywhere... but in a proportional manner. So it sucks for everybody in the same way.

Based on what it's written here Steam may not be able to restrict the access to the Russian store nor reject a credit card that is located in the EU.

But what's written there applies only to the EU, except if I missed or misinterpreted something.
I don't think anything in there applies to outside of the EU (like Russia).

You're right on that. Applied EU rules to any country of Europe... silly me.

Don't feel too bad, geo-politics are a mess... :/

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Supranational_European_Bodies-en.svg

there is a chance that a third party can exploit this backdoor and create a business around it that will definitely simplify the steps that a user has to follow in order to get their games for cheaper.

Correct.
This is a basic property of free market capitalism.

The solution to this is for publishers to lower prices to the lowest common denominator. If this leads to their products no longer being profitable, then the product is unsustainable and they will have to either lower production costs or pick a higher price and focus on a different subset of the market.

One example of the former is indie-games, an example of the later is Apple.

Honestly as a European I don't dislike the single market. The implementation though is sloppy in multiple ways. But it would be unfair to deny that it improved over the years and it will likely improve more in future.

Agreed.

For anyone unfamiliar with EU, a lot of the mess comes from it being a democracy. Don't get me wrong though, democracy while not perfect is the best we got or as Churchill put it 'Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.'

Here is a rough diagram:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Organs_of_the_European_Union.svg

Basically everything is a compromise between different member states (recursively), with "EU" as a concept being represented by the EU Commission.

For anyone unfamiliar with EU, a lot of the mess comes from it being a democracy. Don't get me wrong though, democracy while not perfect is the best we got or as Churchill put it [i]'Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.'

As for everything, there are different shades of gray also democracy. The issue with EU democracy is that it's a very indirect democracy. The parlament is mostly fine. But for the government it wouldn't hurt to have less interference from national governments and more direct relationship with the voters. Yet (and this is true geopolitics) the EU is just another playfield for single EU capitals to subdue and/or excert their influence over the others. So I guess it cannot be helped. It would be a nightmare if not for the USA working hidden in the background to prevent anyone to have to much success. So, as far as I'm concerned, given the last century of peace I don't dislike the disfunctional status quo to much. As long there is no Frenxit or Germanexit, we should all be safe.

You talk like someone with money in your pocket. Good for you.

To hell with the poor and their problems. Let them go back to piracy, were they belong.

That is a pretty polemic attempt at a strawman. Try making an argument instead!

So I guess it cannot be helped. It would be a nightmare if not for the USA working hidden in the background to prevent anyone to have to much success. So, as far as I'm concerned, given the last century of peace I don't dislike the disfunctional status quo to much. As long there is no Frenxit or Germanexit, we should all be safe.

I don't see how the USA not working in the background to the detriment of all involved EU-countries would cause a nightmare. Peace and stability come from the aligned economic interests as well as a certain level of education, in my opinion, but not from the dysfunctionality in the representation of interests. Increasing economic entanglement makes conflict inherently lossy for all.


Last edited by minfaer on 22 January 2021 at 10:54 pm UTC

So, you propouse use regulation (forcing valve enable regional pricing) for deal with consequences of another regulation?

You are shifting the blame here.
The consequences of not allowing region blocking should not be that there is only one EU region. Imagine if that was the case for other goods - EU would have imploded the moment that happened.
That this was the result is entirely Valve's fault - they could have, and easily so, only removed the region locking without also removing different EU regions (remember, they had those, even if only three).
They did not do that out of good old corporate greed - capitalistic entities will always strive to maximize profit, no matter the negative consequences. Which a state (or in this case, the EU) exists to regulate in order to benefit its citizens. It's called social capitalism and is working fairly well in most European countries.
It requires regulations, believe it or not.

Now, what can the EU do here?
Abolish its own principles because one fringe entity (in the grand scheme of things, when talking about the entire EU, Valve doesn't amount to anything) chose to be greedy about implementing laws?
I'd hope not - if they did that, it would show that just about anyone could strongarm the EU into backpedaling.
Force Valve to not f*ck over its customers? That would be optimal but as I said, I have no clue if there is legal ground to enforce regional pricing.
Or just do nothing and accept being blamed for another's fault? Unfortunately the most likely scenario here, there are bigger tasks to tackle right now for the EU than Valve.

Another regulation only do situaction worst in another place!

Not the one that I proposed, at least not for customers.
As I wrote before, regional pricing has not lead to price increases so far - just look at Russian games that aren't region locked, there is no price increase on the scale some seem to be afraid of.
Assuming that this would somehow be different for the EU is just fear mongering without a base in reality.

It would lead to Valve and publishers earning less money per purchase in lower income regions - while also leading to a lot more purchases in these regions. I'm not even sure it would lead to a net loss. I could very well imagine lots of people from lower income regions purchasing a lot more after such a change.

Besides, seriously, what is the worst that could happen?
We already ARE in the worst case for most Steam customers in the EU! Everyone's paying the highest price. Having regional prices again would mean an improvement for pretty much everyone.
Even in the (highly unlikely) case that those regional prices would be rising - they'd still be lower for most than they are now.

I'm not shifting blame. I identified true criminal in this case and it is EU. Whole EU is just regulatory hell which make hell from living in here. Idea of duty free trade is good, but EU evolved into mutch closer to totalitarian organisation. Ok, not china level yet, but wait couple years.
EU is evil organisation to begin with.
Which negative consequences have maximizing profit in this case? That rich germans with houshold income mote then 2* greater then for example czech houshold income can't buy games on third party regional sites and use it? Without this barier, germans can maximize their profit at the expense of citizens of poorer nations. So local third party stores need choose higher prices.

In this case, Valve is purely victim of EU oppression and regulatory hell.
So, some games are using regional lock in russia. Is logical to assume one who change price are the one which move price.

All regulations have negative side efect!

This is no doubt true, but many regulations have positive primary effects that are much more important. I, personally, am quite fond of safe food and drink, for instance.

Food and drink regulation are evil just like all other regulation. They need to be abolished as all other regulation.

All regulations have negative side efect!

This is no doubt true, but many regulations have positive primary effects that are much more important. I, personally, am quite fond of safe food and drink, for instance.

Food and drink regulation are evil just like all other regulation. They need to be abolished as all other regulation.

Oh that's insane. Here, have some melamine milk.

So, you propouse use regulation (forcing valve enable regional pricing) for deal with consequences of another regulation?

You are shifting the blame here.
The consequences of not allowing region blocking should not be that there is only one EU region. Imagine if that was the case for other goods - EU would have imploded the moment that happened.
That this was the result is entirely Valve's fault - they could have, and easily so, only removed the region locking without also removing different EU regions (remember, they had those, even if only three).
They did not do that out of good old corporate greed - capitalistic entities will always strive to maximize profit, no matter the negative consequences. Which a state (or in this case, the EU) exists to regulate in order to benefit its citizens. It's called social capitalism and is working fairly well in most European countries.
It requires regulations, believe it or not.

Now, what can the EU do here?
Abolish its own principles because one fringe entity (in the grand scheme of things, when talking about the entire EU, Valve doesn't amount to anything) chose to be greedy about implementing laws?
I'd hope not - if they did that, it would show that just about anyone could strongarm the EU into backpedaling.
Force Valve to not f*ck over its customers? That would be optimal but as I said, I have no clue if there is legal ground to enforce regional pricing.
Or just do nothing and accept being blamed for another's fault? Unfortunately the most likely scenario here, there are bigger tasks to tackle right now for the EU than Valve.

Another regulation only do situaction worst in another place!

Not the one that I proposed, at least not for customers.
As I wrote before, regional pricing has not lead to price increases so far - just look at Russian games that aren't region locked, there is no price increase on the scale some seem to be afraid of.
Assuming that this would somehow be different for the EU is just fear mongering without a base in reality.

It would lead to Valve and publishers earning less money per purchase in lower income regions - while also leading to a lot more purchases in these regions. I'm not even sure it would lead to a net loss. I could very well imagine lots of people from lower income regions purchasing a lot more after such a change.

Besides, seriously, what is the worst that could happen?
We already ARE in the worst case for most Steam customers in the EU! Everyone's paying the highest price. Having regional prices again would mean an improvement for pretty much everyone.
Even in the (highly unlikely) case that those regional prices would be rising - they'd still be lower for most than they are now.

I'm not shifting blame. I identified true criminal in this case and it is EU. Whole EU is just regulatory hell which make hell from living in here. Idea of duty free trade is good, but EU evolved into mutch closer to totalitarian organisation. Ok, not china level yet, but wait couple years.
EU is evil organisation to begin with.
Which negative consequences have maximizing profit in this case? That rich germans with houshold income mote then 2* greater then for example czech houshold income can't buy games on third party regional sites and use it? Without this barier, germans can maximize their profit at the expense of citizens of poorer nations. So local third party stores need choose higher prices.

In this case, Valve is purely victim of EU oppression and regulatory hell.
So, some games are using regional lock in russia. Is logical to assume one who change price are the one which move price.

I was going to actually reply in detail and dismantle every single non-argument in that load of poorly veiled anti-EU propaganda.
But I think that would be waste of time and instead I'm going to abbreviate it all with:

Careful, your mouth is foaming.

So, you propouse use regulation (forcing valve enable regional pricing) for deal with consequences of another regulation?

You are shifting the blame here.
The consequences of not allowing region blocking should not be that there is only one EU region. Imagine if that was the case for other goods - EU would have imploded the moment that happened.
That this was the result is entirely Valve's fault - they could have, and easily so, only removed the region locking without also removing different EU regions (remember, they had those, even if only three).
They did not do that out of good old corporate greed - capitalistic entities will always strive to maximize profit, no matter the negative consequences. Which a state (or in this case, the EU) exists to regulate in order to benefit its citizens. It's called social capitalism and is working fairly well in most European countries.
It requires regulations, believe it or not.

Now, what can the EU do here?
Abolish its own principles because one fringe entity (in the grand scheme of things, when talking about the entire EU, Valve doesn't amount to anything) chose to be greedy about implementing laws?
I'd hope not - if they did that, it would show that just about anyone could strongarm the EU into backpedaling.
Force Valve to not f*ck over its customers? That would be optimal but as I said, I have no clue if there is legal ground to enforce regional pricing.
Or just do nothing and accept being blamed for another's fault? Unfortunately the most likely scenario here, there are bigger tasks to tackle right now for the EU than Valve.

Another regulation only do situaction worst in another place!

Not the one that I proposed, at least not for customers.
As I wrote before, regional pricing has not lead to price increases so far - just look at Russian games that aren't region locked, there is no price increase on the scale some seem to be afraid of.
Assuming that this would somehow be different for the EU is just fear mongering without a base in reality.

It would lead to Valve and publishers earning less money per purchase in lower income regions - while also leading to a lot more purchases in these regions. I'm not even sure it would lead to a net loss. I could very well imagine lots of people from lower income regions purchasing a lot more after such a change.

Besides, seriously, what is the worst that could happen?
We already ARE in the worst case for most Steam customers in the EU! Everyone's paying the highest price. Having regional prices again would mean an improvement for pretty much everyone.
Even in the (highly unlikely) case that those regional prices would be rising - they'd still be lower for most than they are now.

I'm not shifting blame. I identified true criminal in this case and it is EU. Whole EU is just regulatory hell which make hell from living in here. Idea of duty free trade is good, but EU evolved into mutch closer to totalitarian organisation. Ok, not china level yet, but wait couple years.
EU is evil organisation to begin with.
Which negative consequences have maximizing profit in this case? That rich germans with houshold income mote then 2* greater then for example czech houshold income can't buy games on third party regional sites and use it? Without this barier, germans can maximize their profit at the expense of citizens of poorer nations. So local third party stores need choose higher prices.

In this case, Valve is purely victim of EU oppression and regulatory hell.
So, some games are using regional lock in russia. Is logical to assume one who change price are the one which move price.

I was going to actually reply in detail and dismantle every single non-argument in that load of poorly veiled anti-EU propaganda.
But I think that would be waste of time and instead I'm going to abbreviate it all with:

Careful, your mouth is foaming.

I for one think that EU is really good thing, it really helped the countries in it to have better living conditions. There are plenty of things about EU that are not nice or just pure bureaucracy, but it really helping as a whole.

It just needs time to find out what is working and what is not. Remember it's here for just few decades.

I don't see how the USA not working in the background to the detriment of all involved EU-countries would cause a nightmare.

Because without them keeping the balance, eventually one capital will rise to rule the others (today that would be Berlin, in a few years Paris, London just went seppuku). And given last 100 years of history (during but most alarmingly after WW2) I don't trust any of the existing EU capitals (mine included) to build an hegemony that is a better world to live in than what Washington built. It's as simple as that. When I think to Catalan or Greek crysis I'm horrified at the idea of a EU army.
Then if you talk about Utopia, an EU where very people can self determine, keep its identity and local interests while being part of a bigger federation, like a super Switzerland, well I'm all for that. But that's not the foundation of present day EU so everyone should know that this is not where we are going (nor where anti-europeans are going too). Not without a revolution first.

Peace and stability come from the aligned economic interests as well as a certain level of education, in my opinion, but not from the dysfunctionality in the representation of interests. Increasing economic entanglement makes conflict inherently lossy for all.

That would be very nice. But that is also naive. That's very OT for a linux forum but whatever. You should know that economic interests are not the end goal of foreign policies. Power, in its broad definition, is. Economic interests are just one aspect of power, and they can be "traded" for any other advantage in other areas that result in an overall growth of power. It happened and happens all the time. Wars pretty much always result in a worsening of economic interests, but they have always been fought anyway. Democracies or not. Wasn't in USA/GB/Netherlands economic interest to continue sell raw materials to Japan and make money, instead of give them no other option than to get these by force in 1941? Or Hitler to continue trade raw materials with Stalin instead of backstab him? Yes it was. Those guys not only went against their economic interest but triggered wars with different luck. But in a bigger picture, what they did was to trade their economic advantages to stop the power growth of a counterpart that was already set to outgrow them in power, before it was to late or to late anyway in these examples. That factoring out ideologies, it would have worked the same way even by swapping these.

Today as Europeans we came to believe that economic interests are the only thing that matters for peace and stability because being part of USA hegemony/empire/sphere of influence whatever one wants to call it, this is the only thing our governments are allowed to pursue under their umbrella (thus we vote politicians to be good at these and mostly only these). When a capital tries to extend its power pojection outiside pure conomic interests, that always irritates Washington (usually it's Paris starting wars or "destabilizing areas" on its own, less frequently London). At the same time the USA trade a lot of their economic interests for other advantages in Europe, like influence or military power presence/projection. And for us as individuals citizens it's not that bad. We have peace and a good life style. US citizens have their hegemony. I don't see how changing the status quo will result to a better life to me or my beloved ones. For what I read on history books Europe has never been a better place to live before. Not saying it's a perfect world. Just that now, in my opinion, there are no winds pushing the ship toward a better one.