Whether or not you view Steam as a monopoly in the PC games market, there’s no denying that perception exists, with a recent study showing 72% of participating game devs see it that way. Valve’s Gabe Newell will say gamers “have enormous choice” when it comes to deciding where to buy their PC games, which is true, but critics will point to reports of Valve’s allegedly aggressive responses to game developers who offer sweeter deals on other platforms.
Bloomberg reports on two specific alleged instances of Valve going after game developers and publishers which it seemingly felt were trying to attract consumers to Steam competitors. Citing emails uncovered from the discovery phase of an ongoing class action antitrust lawsuit against Valve, Bloomberg’s report claims Valve has been accused of threatening to delist all editions of the tactical first-person shooter Rainbow Six Siege because it learned Ubisoft had been marketing a cheaper bundle exclusively on its in-house Uplay storefront. According to the report, Valve gave Ubisoft until “end of day tomorrow” to rectify the situation.
Most publicly available and reported complaints from developers against Steam are coming from independent studios, but Ubisoft isn’t the only big name associated with the lawsuit. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, now Warner Bros. Games, the company behind game adaptations of Middle-earth, Harry Potter, and DC Comics properties, also reportedly drew the ire of Valve with sales that ran afoul of the PC games giant.
Back in 2017, Kassidy Gerber, a member of Steam’s business development team, reportedly sent correspondence to Warner Bros. executives informing them that pre-orders for the company’s new game, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, had been pulled from Steam because the price was “significantly higher than what was available at other retailers for the same version of the game.” Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment President David Haddad was reportedly very quick to contact Gerber by phone in an attempt to reconcile.
This image of Valve ruling the PC market with an iron fist clashes with the company’s reputation as an anti-corporate champion of the people, but Gerber reportedly denied in her deposition that Valve has any specific policy about how game developers price their games on various platforms, saying, “In general, I don’t feel like we have a lot of policies. That sounds kind of bureaucratic to me.” However, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the case claimed Gerber had once explicitly told a game developer “Steam’s policy has always been to require material parity for things we sell on the Steam Store.” Per Bloomberg, Gerber responded that she couldn’t remember having said that.
We’ve reached out to Valve for comment and will update this article if we hear back.
In the meantime, here are the best PC games you can play right now.
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