Cases

Valve/Steam Game Overcharge Arbitration

21 Nov, 2022

-SIGN-UP IS CLOSED FOR THIS CASE-

 

What is the case about?

Mason LLP represents tens of thousands of gamers with claims against Valve, the owner of Steam. These claims must be pursued in arbitration pursuant to the Steam Terms of Service.

The arbitration claims are related to a federal class action filed by Wolfire Games, a game publisher, claiming that Valve uses its monopoly power to force game publishers to sell their games through the Steam Store and to pay Valve supra-competitive commissions. This same conduct causes gamers to pay more for games as well. Game consumers tried to bring a class action, but the court ruled that these claims could only be pursued through individual arbitrations. 

Earlier this year, the court ruled on Valve’s second motion to dismiss the publisher’s class action. The motion was granted in part and denied in part. More specifically, the Court allowed Wolfire’s Sherman Act antitrust claims against Valve to proceed and found that Wolfire had properly pled that Valve’s conduct resulted in higher commissions for games sold on Steam.  

Valve allegedly uses its dominance over PC game distribution to impose and maintain a 30% commission on nearly every sale made through its store. This commission far exceeds what would prevail in a competitive market and yields Valve billions of dollars in supra-competitive annual profits. Valve’s bloated commission makes games more expensive for consumers to buy while suppressing sales volumes and revenues for game publishers. And because Valve extracts so much revenue in its middleman role, quality and innovation in the industry suffer. As do consumers.

To help maintain its monopoly power, Valve uses what is known as a Platform Most Favored Nations (“PMFN”) clause in its agreements with game publishers which prevents game publishers from selling their games on other online gaming sites with lower costs, fees, and/or sales commissions for less than the game publishers sell their games on the Steam platform. We believe that Valve’s PMFN clause harms the entire industry by removing the ability of competitive forces to drive lower commissions and lower prices. Absent Valve’s PMFN, competitive forces would put downward pressure on Valve’s bloated 30% commission due to game publishers selling games for less on stores that charge lower commissions. Those competitive pressures would force Valve to lower its commission in an effort to compete on price with its rivals. That would promote competition and lead to overall lower prices, benefiting game publishers and consumers alike. But Valve’s PMFN blocks these benefits from occurring. Other platforms, such as Epic, have attempted to compete with Valve by charging lower commissions (12% in Epic’s case); however, because of the Valve PMFN, those attempts have not seen success.

We believe that all consumers transacting on the Steam platform have been harmed by Valve’s conduct in the form of higher prices for PC games than would otherwise occur in a competitive market.

Based on Valve’s alleged conduct, consumers purchasing PC games off of the Steam platform have claims against Valve under not only Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act but also under state consumer protection and antitrust laws.

 

FAQ’s

1. Will I lose access to my Steam account and games? – No. Valve’s allows arbitration to be filed against it pursuant to its Terms of Service.  It would be a violation of the TOS and a new claim against it, if it banned or blocked accounts.  We have no reason to believe they will block anyone’s account. 

2. Is this a class action? Why do I need to sign up? – This is a mass arbitration. Only persons who sign up with us will be eligible for a settlement. There are no absent class members nor will there be a “class-wide” settlement.

3. How much will I get? – We estimate damages could be 30-60% of what you have spent on Steam game purchases since January 28, 2017. We guarantee you will never owe us any money, except from your recovery. Our fee is 40% of your recovery and we estimate that expenses, spread across our clients, will be less than 10% of your recovery. If we do not recover any money for you, you owe us nothing.

4. Where can I find my account value? -You can check your account value from within your own Steam account or you can also use a number of calculators online that do it for you, such as the Steam Calculator.

 

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