A new lawsuit filed by five gamers in California federal court accuses Valve of abusing its power to keep PC game prices high.As reported by THR, this lawsuit claims that Valve does not maintain its dominance over the PC market by offering better prices on Steam than other platforms, but does so by abusing its power to require developers to enter what is known as a ‘Most Favored Nations’ clause.
“Valve Corporation’s Steam platform is the dominant platform for game developers to distribute and sell PC games in the United States,” states the complaint being handled by attorneys at Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease. “But the Steam platform does not maintain its dominance through better pricing than by rival platforms. Instead, Valve abuses the Steam platform’s market power by requiring game developers to enter into a ‘Most Favored Nations’ provision contained in the Steam Distribution Agreement whereby the game developers agree that the price of a PC game on the Steam platform will be the same price the game developers sell their PC games on other platforms.”