It almost feels like USA vs Europe.
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It's more like someone in Ohio and California had different price and state-lock while the common market existed in actuality and then Valve stopped that in 2015, but some sort of USA trade commission or some other federal office said "You can't do this" in 2019, give us 10% of your profits in USA.
No wonder they are fighting it.
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yeah that's what it sounded like to me.. can't blame valve for wanting to fight it. they definitely have the money to throw at the proper lawyers.
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I'm not sure I get what's being argued here... Seems to me that Valve still is practicing outrageous regional pricing within EU, but I might be mistaken
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My guess is they are trying to argue that grouping all keys into an EU region is sufficient to satisfy the law and ignore actual store pricing.
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The EU's issue with Valve is region locking within different parts of the EU, which is a definite no-no. Single market.
Issue with publishers is prohibiting distributors from selling to the entire EU.
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While the EU might look like a single entity, in practice it is not. While Germany and France are flourishing, many of the other countries are struggling.
I can understand both Steam and the various publishers trying to enforce different pricing in countries, but at the end of the day if the EU is taking this to court, then those countries who aren't well off are actually going to be paying more for their games, not less.
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Legally it's a single entity. If you want to do business there, you have to abide by the single market rules.
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Region-block is cancer. They can tribute taxes wherever they want…
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Don't you think removing region-blocks will just result in higher prices for regions, where it's not feasible? In some countries (in comparison to other countries), people are earning much less money on average, which means they will buy much less as a result. Region block is a valid solution for letting those less wealthy countries to keep buying while preventing more wealthy countries to buy in those cheaper regions for obvious reasons.
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Thats beautiful. But im old enought to remember buying games from brazil/russia no trouble at all at cheap prices. And Valve dont pay taxes to my country because we are an "expensive" country. They pay in the netherlands or some tax haven. Ok for them but not for us?
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It's some ridiculous double standard for tax evasion. Companies do it all the time but regular people have their hands tied.
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Buying where it's cheaper is not tax evasion. And that's another thing companies do all the time, with goods and labor.
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mwahahaha!
funny and sad, but mostly funny. and obviously very true :D
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Tax evasion is of course abhorrent and a higly unethical practice. Regional pricing for these types of products is however not, in my opinion. If there was no regional pricing most people in developing countries would not have access to this type of content legally.
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Don't you think removing region-blocks will just result in higher prices for regions, where it's not feasible? In some countries (in comparison to other countries), people are earning much less money on average, which means they will buy much less as a result. Region block is a valid solution for letting those less wealthy countries to keep buying while preventing more wealthy countries to buy in those cheaper regions for obvious reasons.
You're just describing the current issue. I wonder what average Albanian can pay 15% of their monthly wage on a new release? At the same time, an average Norwegian only needs to shell out 2%. They're both in the same region currently. So perhaps it's time to lower those prices?
Current region locking shows that more specific regions lead to more appropriate pricing:
Let's take Argentina (av. wage 500€), Brazil (610€), USA (3532€) Albania (393€) and Finland (2509€).
The base price is the US pricing. Finland earns -29%, Brazil -82%, Argentina -85% and Albania -89%. Albania and Finland are both with the EU pricing.
GTA V
R6: Siege
Dying Light
Final Fantasy VII
GTA V = +10.5% EU, -44% Brazil, -60% Argentina.
R6: Siege = +10.5% EU, -28% Brazil, -40% Argentina
Dying Light = -17% EU, -52% Brazil, -80% Argentina
Final Fantasy VII = +20% EU, -60% Brazil, -79% Argentina
I hope this selection's fair. Newer, older, more greedy, less greedy publishers. But the fact always remains. The EU is almost always the most expensive region of these, it has lower wages most of the time, if they're cheaper, then others are also cheaper due to everything being priced pretty properly for each region. Brazil and Argentina have their own prices and suddenly the prices are much lower. It's not perfect, of course. But if a country earns 89% less on average and has to pay 10% more on average, then maybe there's a massive issue with the single region pricing.
All the links are there and I encourage you to look more into it if you're unconvinced. Also, try and find things to contradict this since there will definitely be examples of that. But I think overall this shows that currently having separate regions will lead to more fair pricing. Will it be completely fair? Most likely not. But will it be more fair compared to what there is now? The current state of the general video game market shows that it will.
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just a small correction. Norway isn't in the EUR region, they have their own region and guess what? It is cheaper than EUR:-) Usually by 10-20%
Because developers think citizens from the most wealthy country of the world need to pay less than citizens from the East-EU+Balcanic States. Oh, what i talking, no one buy games in these regions, 99% of players pirating, they can wonder why.
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Ah, alright. Thanks for the correction! I thought since Norway has ties with the EU, it might have been the same way as with Albania, which has a non-EU partnership program in place.
Because developers think citizens from the most wealthy country of the world need to pay less than citizens from the East-EU+Balcanic States.
Honestly, I don't even think it's that cynical. I think that it's just that they ask for prices that are pretty correct for the richest EU region countries and anyone else can go fuck themselves and just pay those prices. I guess they don't want the richer countries to pay less than what is the price potential.
The reason I say this is that is basically my main point. That the EU region involves too many different economies to harbor a single price. With other regionlocked countries, the prices are way more in line with their earnings. So that's what I'm guessing at least. What I'm hoping, even.
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so the lesson here is if people pirated more prices would go down.
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They dont just make games cheaper in certain areas, they make them more expensive in others.
Here in Australia, we have to pay more than what US does. So essentially region locks mean that ROW keys are cheaper than our region locked ones, which is why I seldom buy from steam.
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Yeah, just raise all prices to the highest level possible!
Push people to the grey market!
Go EU, you smart cookies you!
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That would be the choice of Valve/publishers. Not the EU.
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Valve wont go low, they might not go high, but even if they go somewhere in the middle it will mean the rich win and the poor are worse off. I'm all for fair trading practices but the EU is so focused on removing borders that they forget the inequality in the member countries that is the result of centuries of development and can't be undone in a few years. Just cos their lies are more elaborate doesn't make it any better than The Great Tax Break Heist in the US.
Try moving from Sofia to Stuttgart and buying a house, the square meter price is 6x higher, your Bulgarian Euros wont go far. Yet the EU thinks it is a great idea to meet somewhere in the middle for games, why not do it with houses too then. Let's raise Sofia square meter prices to 3k and lower Stuttgart prices to 3k, it's only fair... (I know, bad example because there are no limiting factors on housing like there are on games, but I'm just sketching the absurdity of the EU's thinking)
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There wasn't middle price, EUR2 was simply removed. Not like many developer used it for different pricing, mostly only developers who are from the region and aware of the poorness of east EU. One of the examples I remember was Talos Principle, it was -50% for EUR2 compared to EUR1 price and based on the fact east EU salaries more than 50% worse while the food, everything costs now nearly same (except services), so it was a fair pricing
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"Valve Corp, owner of the world’s largest video game distribution platform “Steam”, plans to fight EU antitrust charges of preventing cross-border trade, unlike five video game publishers which plan to settle the case, people familiar with the matter said.
Valve and video game makers Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and U.S. peer ZeniMax have been the target of a European Commission investigation since 2017.
The EU competition enforcer in April charged the six companies with preventing EU consumers from shopping around for the best video game deals within the 28-country bloc.
It said the companies agreed to use geo-blocking activation keys to prevent consumers in one EU country from buying cheaper versions of a game in another EU country.
The Commission, which wants to scrap cross-border curbs on online trade in the bloc, also charged the five publishers of preventing other distributors from selling video games outside their allocated territories.
Valve is fighting the charge and is likely to ask for a closed-door hearing to argue its case before senior competition officials from the Commission and national watchdogs, the people said.
The five publishers plan to settle the charges, they said. Under EU antitrust rules for settlements, companies admit wrongdoing in return for a 10 percent cut in their fines.
Valve and Focus Home did not respond to requests for comments. Valve in its April statement on the EU charges said the region locks applied to only 3 percent of all games using its Steam platform and that it turned off the locks in Europe in 2015.
The Commission, which can fine companies up to 10 percent of their turnover for breaching EU antitrust rules, declined to comment.
Japanese company Capcom said it could not provide any further comment until the Commission issues a decision. Bandai Namco said: “It is BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe’s company policy to not comment on any ongoing legal matters.”
Washington, D.C.-based ZeniMax and Koch Media had no immediate comment."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-antitrust-videogames-exclusive/exclusive-valve-to-fight-eu-antitrust-charges-five-videogame-publishers-to-settle-sources-idUSKCN1VJ26R
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