Steam and 5 publishers fined for geoblocking
Steam and 5 publishers fined for geoblocking
Good, fuck geoblocking. Bandai 340k Capcom 396k Focus 2.8m Koch 1m Zenimax 1.6m Valve 1.6m
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_21_170
Judgement from the EU court of justice: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2023-09/cp230147en.pdf
ZERO excuse for geolocking to ever exist. we have technology beyond our wildest dreams to freely and instantly share content anywhere in the world and fucking corporate hogs can't let a single good thing exist.
The publishers provided those keys to their distributors for sale and distribution of the PC video games in the Member States concerned. As a result, users located outside a designated Member State were prevented from activating a given PC video game with Steam activation keys.
The Commission found that by bilaterally agreeing to geo-block certain PC video games from outside a specific territory, Valve and each publisher partitioned the EEA market in violation of EU antitrust rules.
Good.
The listed countries look like countries that often get regional pricing. Was the geo blocking to allow for regional pricing in those areas?
I guess. But that doesn't matter, it's against a prime EU principle - free trade inside the EU. They can offer their products cheaper in those countries but they can't tell other EU members not to buy there.
I actually got in contact with zenimax about that issue 10 years ago and after some back and forth they just forwarded me to their legal team. And I sure made a complaint with the EU about it. I'm sure there were lots of complaints about that issue but I feel somewhat validated right now.
I'd like to believe that this is the culmination of your complaint. You did this!
You‘re great! I recently made a complaint with the eu for apples „need mac to extract iphone passwords“. Lets see how that goes.
One of the rare moments I really like to live in the EU!
I haven't read full document but I'm Polish and remember that back in the day when buying some games off Steam you've got some kind of eastern European version that was separate from global one.
Other than DLC being incompatible, the biggest pain in the ass was that the language selection was very limited, commonly just Polish, Lithuanian and Russian (which nobody speaks here). If you weren't fan of localization or wanted to play game in the English or original language you were out of luck.
I can tell you for a fact that people in Hungary pay the same amount as the rest of the EU.
Koch renamed to Plaion last year btw