EU court upholds fine against Valve for geo-blocking

> pay the full €1.6m fine

Peanuts for Valve I'm sure. I wonder if the cost of lawyers trying to fight it was even worth it, lol

Now, if only governments would outlaw region locking with DVDs and Blu-Rays. Region-locking shows on streaming services is bad enough, but region locking physical media is incredibly greedy. Or how about creating firmware for DVD players that will refuse to play discs not authorized to play in this region? How was anti-consumer behavior like this ever allowed? Was anyone allowed to publish a hardcover book which would combust if a customer attempted to open it in Australia?

Fuck region locks. For any reason.

The fine is hilariously low.

Now, if only governments would outlaw region locking with DVDs and Blu-Rays. Region-locking shows on streaming services is bad enough, but region locking physical media is incredibly greedy. Or how about creating firmware for DVD players that will refuse to play discs not authorized to play in this region? How was anti-consumer behavior like this ever allowed? Was anyone allowed to publish a hardcover book which would combust if a customer attempted to open it in Australia?

Fuck region locks. For any reason.

Yeap, only the "recent" 4K/UHD Blu-ray discs are region-free at last...

Now, if only governments would outlaw region locking with DVDs and Blu-Rays. Region-locking shows on streaming services is bad enough, but region locking physical media is incredibly greedy. Or how about creating firmware for DVD players that will refuse to play discs not authorized to play in this region? How was anti-consumer behavior like this ever allowed? Was anyone allowed to publish a hardcover book which would combust if a customer attempted to open it in Australia?

Fuck region locks. For any reason.

Yeah, I remember being pissed about the 3DS having them, and annoyed that the Wii U did. The 3DS was the worse offense, as handhelds were always traditionally region free for the most part.

so they will have to pay the full €1.6m fine.

Welp, that's it, Valve is bankrupt!

With that said, a lot of those limits weren't so much about restricting buyers, but rather restricting scalpers who would buy cheap keys from another region and then sell them on third-party websites.

Though, I can't say I agree with the filtering/limits. I do understand the reasoning.

Or how about creating firmware for DVD players that will refuse to play discs not authorized to play in this region?

In the UK, at least, you could buy DVD players from legitimate stores back in the day which came pre-chipped to avoid all that nonsense. One of my first purchases from Scan was one such player!

Good job fining Valve for region-locking, while Germany continues censoring games and Microsoft buying Activision is tolerated.

Don't like this. The long term result of this is that they will stop offering regional pricing.

With that said, a lot of those limits weren't so much about restricting buyers, but rather restricting scalpers who would buy cheap keys from another region and then sell them on third-party websites.

I thought it was more about buying a cheap physical game in EU country A that required activation on Steam, but activation would not work in EU country B.

If the ruling would apply to digital keys, it should be perfectly fine to buy games cheaply by using a VPN service in a low-price EU country. No need for a middle man. But I don't think that's gonna fly ... not that I ever tried.

To sum up Valve tried blocking people buying games in different EU regions to get them cheaper, which is a breach of EU rules.

To be clear, it wasn't an action by Valve as such, and it wasn't sales on Steam. The publishers had their region restrictions on sales (which aren't allowed within the EU) and gave out Steam keys (for which Valve didn't get money); the publishers used Steam's region locks to prevent activation of those EU keys elsewhere within the EU, and Valve let them. That's why Valve got fined, but that's also why the fine is quite small. Valve subsequently fixed their tools so that publishers can't prevent activation within the EU of something sold within the EU, so it's just that historical breach.

To sum up Valve tried blocking people buying games in different EU regions to get them cheaper, which is a breach of EU rules.

To be clear, it wasn't an action by Valve as such, and it wasn't sales on Steam. The publishers had their region restrictions on sales (which aren't allowed within the EU) and gave out Steam keys (for which Valve didn't get money); the publishers used Steam's region locks to prevent activation of those EU keys elsewhere within the EU, and Valve let them. That's why Valve got fined, but that's also why the fine is quite small. Valve subsequently fixed their tools so that publishers can't prevent activation within the EU of something sold within the EU, so it's just that historical breach.

You are always a veritable mine of relevant information.

Don't like this. The long term result of this is that they will stop offering regional pricing.

Ehhh, probably not. I don't think this slope is very slippery because there are no other confederations like the EU, where a bunch of different countries partly share the same legal system.

To sum up Valve tried blocking people buying games in different EU regions to get them cheaper, which is a breach of EU rules.

To be clear, it wasn't an action by Valve as such, and it wasn't sales on Steam. The publishers had their region restrictions on sales (which aren't allowed within the EU) and gave out Steam keys (for which Valve didn't get money); the publishers used Steam's region locks to prevent activation of those EU keys elsewhere within the EU, and Valve let them. That's why Valve got fined, but that's also why the fine is quite small. Valve subsequently fixed their tools so that publishers can't prevent activation within the EU of something sold within the EU, so it's just that historical breach.

Poor wording on my part, have clarified.

With that said, a lot of those limits weren't so much about restricting buyers, but rather restricting scalpers who would buy cheap keys from another region and then sell them on third-party websites.

I thought it was more about buying a cheap physical game in EU country A that required activation on Steam, but activation would not work in EU country B.

If the ruling would apply to digital keys, it should be perfectly fine to buy games cheaply by using a VPN service in a low-price EU country. No need for a middle man. But I don't think that's gonna fly ... not that I ever tried.

Indeed, it looks like I misunderstood it. My apologies! I wasn't following the case and skimmed the article.

As for the VPN trick, that actually doesn't work, at least not on Steam. Valve set the region pricing based on the registered address and payment methods location. So, VPN or not, you will get your payment method countries pricing.

That's why a certain store; whose name I will not mention because they don't deserve the free advertisement, sells keys on their market place platform. The keys sold are sometimes stolen, or purchased from cheaper regions, since there is no checking to verify that the third party seller obtained the keys legally.

In any case, it appears that is not what the OP/case was referring to :-)

Now, if only governments would outlaw region locking with DVDs and Blu-Rays.

The ruling does not condemn region locks, they must only comply with the law.

Region-locking shows on streaming services is bad enough, but region locking physical media is incredibly greedy.

Isn't the same true for any DRM?

Was anyone allowed to publish a hardcover book which would combust if a customer attempted to open it in Australia?

That analogy doesn't work, you can still use the mediums in the foreign regions. You simply require a device compatible with the region.

Good job fining Valve for region-locking, while Germany continues censoring games and Microsoft buying Activision is tolerated.

Only one of the three broke the law.

Germany does not censor games. Certain presentations are banned but that rarely happens (only 40 games - if the list is complete - were ever banned, 11 bans rescinded). Many games (but even that now rarely happens) were indexed which imposes major restrictions but technically it was still possible to buy the games. Publishers then censored games to allow a mainstream release. This happens in the US, too: e.g. movies are censored in production for an R rating & avoid NC-17. But unlike German releases this usually affects all releases.

You are always a veritable mine of relevant information.

Survivorship bias: the times when I haven't got something useful to say, I try not to say anything.

In this case, it was really from reading Liam's prior coverage.

Ok. But if it's illegal for Valve why is it legal for Netflix, Disney and all the other national media in Europe?

> pay the full €1.6m fine

Peanuts for Valve I'm sure. I wonder if the cost of lawyers trying to fight it was even worth it, lol

Most likely is that they want to fight this so that they can enable it again, not to avoid the €1.6M fine.

Ok. But if it's illegal for Valve why is it legal for Netflix, Disney and all the other national media in Europe?

Netflix doesn't do what Valve was accused of doing, if you buy Netflix in Croatia you can still logon in Norway with the same account, that is why VPN services works for Netflix to get access to different catalogues of media.

Now, if only governments would outlaw region locking with DVDs and Blu-Rays. Region-locking shows on streaming services is bad enough, but region locking physical media is incredibly greedy. Or how about creating firmware for DVD players that will refuse to play discs not authorized to play in this region? How was anti-consumer behavior like this ever allowed? Was anyone allowed to publish a hardcover book which would combust if a customer attempted to open it in Australia?

Fuck region locks. For any reason.

Now you probably talked in more general terms, but just for people who don't know both DVD:s and BR:s are a single region inside the EU so they are both already not region locked as per EU regulation.


Last edited by F.Ultra on 28 September 2023 at 8:14 pm UTC

Everyone here talking about region locks being evil, but no one addressing the elephant in the ROOM of Region locks... in some countries... we cannot buy a Steam deck we'd had to pay double or triple price to scalpers.

That’s an entirely different issue and nothing to do with region locks. Physical distribution comes with a great many hurdles. I do wish Valve would expand it but they will have their reasons why they haven’t.