The Steam platform is not responsible for geoblocking PC titles in the EU, Valve said. Thus, the company commented on the antitrust investigation of the European Commission (EC) against Valve and five other game publishers.
According to Valve’s statement to VentureBeat, regional locks currently apply to only 3% of games featured on Steam. There are no Valve games among them, writes Gamasutra. Geo-blocking works only in those EU countries where local legislation requires it or a third-party company acts as a distributor, the owner of the store said. He also believes that the complete elimination of geo-blocking will lead to higher prices for PC titles in less affluent European countries, where games are usually cheaper. We are talking about the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Romania.
Valve also claims that the EC cannot blame it because of the sale of geo-locked Steam keys in third-party online stores. As stated in the publisher’s statement, Valve provides activation keys to intermediaries for free and does not receive any share from their purchase.
Recall that the EC suspected Valve, as well as Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax of trying to divide the European digital market. European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager claims that the above companies deliberately prevent users from buying games outside their countries of residence – that is, in those regions where lower prices are presented. No direct charges have yet been brought against the six companies.
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