Wolfire Games is suing Valve over Steam revenue sharing and pricing policies
Wolfire Games, game maker and the original founder of Humble Bundle, wants to sue Valve over its monopoly position in the gaming market. Their policies regarding revenue sharing, keys to other stores and selling prices would hinder innovation in the gaming market.
Wolfire Games argues in the indictment that the 30 percent of sales that Valve puts in its pocket is “extremely large.” That would lead to “higher prices and less innovation for everyone but Valve.” Wolfire claims that Valve controls 75 percent of the PC gaming market and their share of all sales is $6 billion, an amount the studio describes as “astronomical profits.”
Valve will also issue Steam keys to game makers upon request for sale on other platforms, such as Green Man Gaming or the Humble Store. On those platforms, the distribution of revenue could be more favorable for the game makers. However, Valve stipulates that the prices for those keys should not be lower than on Steam itself, which would nip competition in the bud. With a price that is as high or higher than on Steam, you cannot compete effectively. If Valve finds that ‘too many’ keys are being sold through a third party, Valve can also turn off that tap at any time.
Valve also grants itself a veto right over the prices in its store. Should a game publisher offer its games in another store, for example the Epic Games Store, cheaper than on Steam, Valve can veto and lower the price on Steam.
Currently, according to the prosecutor, the only solution for Valve’s hold on the market is not to do business with them. However, that is not a fruitful strategy either, because according to the studio, other parties have never been able to capture a significant part of Valve’s market share, partly thanks to Valve’s huge user base. Prominent examples cited are Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Amazon and Epic Games. “The failure of these financially prosperous companies shows that Valve’s grip on the PC gaming market is nearly impossible to overcome.”
Wolfire Games not only wants compensation for the damage it has suffered under Valve’s system, but also wants a court order that the aforementioned Steam conditions be deleted for all game makers and publishers.
A similar case was brought by five users in January and Epic Games has a similar case against Apple. Microsoft cut its share of game sales in the Microsoft Store to 12 percent a few days ago.