A 2021 antitrust dispute filed against Steam has now expanded into a class-action lawsuit.
Wolfire Games, which filed a new order last year, filed an antitrust lawsuit against the megacorporation in 2021. While the original claim was dismissed in November 2021, Wolfire was able to file a new complaint in May 2022. Wolfire was unhappy with the fact that Valve gets 30 percent of all sales on its PC platform, indicating that Valve is using its “dominance” in the market to get “an extraordinarily high percentage of almost all the sales that come through your store. that “explode[s] editors and consumers” alike.
To view this content, please enable targeting cookies.
Now the “plaintiffs claim that Valve's Most Favored Nations Platform (PMFN) policy has the following anti-competitive impacts, among others: (1) Steam earns a supracompetitive commission, (2) game companies cannot compete cross-platform distribution, and (3) rival platforms cannot succeed.
Alleging that this “harms both consumers and game companies by raising prices for consumers and reducing profits for publishers,” the plaintiffs claim in court papers that this violates a number of antitrust laws, including the Antitrust Act. Washington Consumer Protection. Consequently, the plaintiffs seek “collective remedies.”
Wolfire and Dark Catt have been named class representatives for the lawsuit.