Valve Lawsuit

ShiWarrior · 2026-01-28T19:16:38+0000

i don't know if anyone knows about this going around the internet

14 million users could claim a pay-out

UK legal action against Valve over Steam prices gets go ahead

Millions of gamers could get compensation if the lawsuit - which accuses Valve of charging inflated prices - succeeds.

www.bbc.co.uk

UK activist hits Valve with a $903 million lawsuit — claims Steam is abusing its market dominance and forcing UK consumers to pay too much for Steam games

Gamers for years have complained about Valve's high commission rates, and now someone has decided to do something about it

www.tomshardware.com

Valve faces lawsuit over developer commissions on Steam

Valve is facing a lawsuit over allegations of charging publishers excessive commissions for Steam, a British tribunal has ruled.

www.gamedeveloper.com

BUDFORCE · 2026-01-28T19:20:51+0000

I hope Steam wins.

cadmunkey · 2026-01-28T19:33:37+0000

BUDFORCE said:
I hope Steam wins.

I hope they don't and I get a nice refund

Noxia · 2026-01-28T19:47:58+0000

Gray2233 · 2026-01-28T20:01:51+0000

Gamers for years have complained about Valve's high commission rates, and now someone has decided to do something about it.

It might just be me, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone make that complaint let alone gamers. If anything the vast majority of PC gamers are fiercely loyal to Steam due to a preference for it over other options.

The lawsuit instigated by Shotbolt claims that Valve is prohibiting games sold on its Steam platform from being sold through other distribution platforms that might charge less for the same games.

There's multiple other distribution platforms, every major publisher has their own and then there's the likes of Epic, Games Pass, and GoG. I've found games for less money via those platforms many times over the years, that's not even accounting for key distributers such as Loaded or Green Man Gaming that often offer better deals which activate on Steam and again other platforms, and that includes the selling of DLC.

I can't comment on the rest, but a big chunk of this just seems nonsensical to me.

adidan · 2026-01-28T20:09:55+0000

Gray2233 said:
It might just be me, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone make that complaint let alone gamers.

Same but then I'm tight and generally stay a couple of years or more behind releases so I've only really bought extremely good value games.

Much of the time they've had all dlc included as they've been out a while.

Don't care if it's steam, epic, gog or wherever. Preferably gog because you can actually download the installer.

Interesting the toms article says Epic takes the least comission at 12% and yet they seem to be the most expensive some times? I could be wrong on that and they're in my good books for filling up my library with freebies.

Guest2 · 2026-01-28T22:24:12+0000

Why's this happening exactly? It's not as if we're forced into using Steam.
Arent people just annoyed that they're doing well?

decto · 2026-01-28T22:28:20+0000

I bought most of my games in the sales for 90% off.... but I'm with Steam.

nutsnut · 2026-01-28T22:34:01+0000

Sounds like a bunch of eu lawyers looking g for a payout, which will only harm valve and it's users despite the users being happy

Moothead2 · 2026-01-28T22:36:54+0000

Guest2 said:
Why's this happening exactly? It's not as if we're forced into using Steam.
Arent people just annoyed that they're doing well?

Probably because they're essentially a monopoly and if a dev wants to release to a sizable audience on PC they have to give Valve 30%.

I pray for the day people stop acting like Valve are your friends. Pretty much every ****** business practise was either invented or popularised by them. Online activation for physcial games, forced install of launchers, lootboxes, battle passes, turning a blind eye to gambling sites using their products to let kids gamble, not owning your games, not refunding digital purchases until they were forced to by lawsuits like this, pushing paid mods in the worst way possible. Their sales aren't even remotely good value compared to key sites these days either.

Gray2233 · 2026-01-28T22:38:15+0000

Guest2 said:
Why's this happening exactly? It's not as if we're forced into using Steam.
Arent people just annoyed that they're doing well?

Honestly? I read into the person behind the claim a little bit, I'd guess it's for exposure more than anything else. The person bringing the claim is part of an activist group behind the following:

Parent Zone | At the heart of digital family life

Parent Zone is a parenting organisation working to make the online world a safer, more positive place for families and children. Explore the ways Parent Zone can help your family, school or organisation understand online safety.

parentzone.org.uk

It frankly seems a bit dodgy to me. Viki and the organisation is apparently focused on "children's digital rights" of all things, which as children in my mind should go as far as what the parents allow. It's a very strange premise to me, if it related to safeguarding them I might not necessarily agree depending on the direction but this avenue is just flat out odd. It comes across as intentionally vague and probably for good reason on their behalf.

Moothead2 said:
Probably because they're essentially a monopoly and if a dev wants to release to a sizable audience on PC they have to give Valve 30%.

I pray for the day people stop acting like Valve are your friends. Pretty much every ****** business practise was either invented or popularised by them. Online activation for physcial games, forced install of launchers, lootboxes, battle passes, turning a blind eye to gambling sites using their products to let kids gamble, not owning your games, not refunding digital purchases until they were forced to by lawsuits like this, pushing paid mods in the worst way possible. Their sales aren't even remotely good value compared to key sites these days either.

Valve is far from perfect but you're applying via insinuation that they were involved with all of those things, rather than what they are which is a simple digital storefront. The people behind those things are the men in suits at the top of big publishers like EA, Activision, and Ubisoft.

pacegod · 2026-01-28T22:42:21+0000

Most stores do this, if I buy on epic i can’t then buy the rest on steam, same with Xbox etc.
Vicki Shotbolt seems like an ambulance chaser, oh and where are these 14 million uk gamers on steam..

Moothead2 · 2026-01-28T22:46:19+0000

Gray2233 said:
Valve is far from perfect but you're applying via insinuation that they were involved with all of those things, rather than what they are which is a simple digital storefront. The people behind those things are the men in suits at the top of big publishers like EA, Activision, and Ubisoft.

That makes no sense at all. Valve weren't held at gunpoint by the EA CEO and forced to put lootboxes in their games or force you to download their bad (at the time) client and be online to play HL2. None of this has anything to with Ubisoft or EA and everything to do with Valve wanting to make as much money as possible. They're a business, Newell isn't your funny, fat gamer friend. Being better than EA doesn't make you good either.

Stumble Bum · 2026-01-28T22:51:37+0000

The steam lovein from gamers is bizarre. Valve are complete money grabbers with thier fees and given the monopoly they have built up the consumer has been screwed over for years. I hope they put a sensible cap on fees charged to game developers.

adidan · 2026-01-28T23:00:08+0000

Stumble Bum said:
The steam lovein from gamers is bizarre. Valve are complete money grabbers with thier fees and given the monopoly they have built up the consumer has been screwed over for years. I hope they put a sensible cap on fees charged to game developers.

I think there's an argument for developers to have issues about the commission structure but if it's too expensive for people there are options out there for many cases.

Don't get me wrong, I thought digital games were supposed to save us money as they don't have to press discs and produce booklets.

I miss proper in hand games with the lovely smell of a game booklet.

Gray2233 · 2026-01-28T23:02:48+0000

Moothead2 said:
That makes no sense at all. Valve weren't held at gunpoint by the EA CEO and forced to put lootboxes in their games or force you to download their bad (at the time) client and be online to play HL2. None of this has anything to with Ubisoft or EA and everything to do with Valve wanting to make as much money as possible.

You seem to be very upset at Valve for some reason.

Do you go to B&Q and yell at the staff when there's a factory related fault discovered in something they happen to sell? Or are you saying that Valve needs to be the divine arbiter of all things gaming, rather than simply selling games?

You're also ignoring most of what I said, yes they are guilty of in my mind bad practice with lootboxes in Counter Strike of all things. Them using online activation for HL2 is irrelevant to the fact other publishers and companies did it and continued to do so, the last time Valve developed/released a major game that was not a new iteration of CS was over a decade ago.

The point is they've by and large focused on being a digital storefront that is favoured by gamers by and large, it is not a necessity. For every bad thing they've done EA and Activision etc have done a million times worse and continue to do so.

1. Lootboxes date back to probably pre-valve, they existed in a bunch of games external to the platform. Fifa had them dating back to to pre 2010 and the first game on Steam didn't come about until 2020.
2. Forced launchers started with Blizzard and battle.net requiring their servers for real online play (although there were LAN/direct IP options, nobody used them), and evolved from there. It was entirely a closed platform up until recently. The GameSpy client also launched pre-Steam and was actually a hard requirement for online play with multiple titles.
3. Your original statement on 30% is technically true but there's a threshold, their cut reduces notably with high sales, something the lawsuit does not address and will come back to bite them.

Them poorly handling gambling related sites related to CS2 lootboxes I fully agree with, as mentioned.

These things were always going to happen, and other companies as stated have committed far worse acts while Steam has by and large been a digital storefront primarily for going on two decades. That might not make them right, but it's entirely irrelevant to what this lawsuit is trying to present.

If the lawsuit related to something Steam had actually done which it shouldn't I'd support it, and for the record I buy from GoG whenever possible and have zero loyalty to any one platform.

Parky · 2026-01-28T23:13:31+0000

I'm not sure I understand what the ultimate end goal is here other than to try and score a pay-out, surely the same case could be made against any of the other platforms in some form or other.

Brun · 2026-01-28T23:45:42+0000

nutsnut said:
Sounds like a bunch of eu lawyers looking g for a payout, which will only harm valve and it's users despite the users being happy

There are three linked articles, but why bother reading any when you can just assume what it 'sounds like'. :rolleyes:

manic111 · 2026-01-29T00:17:08+0000

nutsnut said:
Sounds like a bunch of eu lawyers looking g for a payout, which will only harm valve and it's users despite the users being happy

Eh? It's litigation in London, run by an English firm.

Mark A · 2026-01-29T00:26:29+0000

I worry what repercussions will come from this if Steam loses. The UK is a tiny market for them, so I can see them just locking us out of a lot of games that could fall foul of this again in the future. They already locked us out of adult games unless we have a credit card as they cba to implement ID checks, so it seems like they favour the easiest option, even if it means losing a small amount of income.