With the advent of digital versions of games, a new market was born among the most enthusiastic. And it is that buying with different currencies on many occasions allows you to buy recently released games at really low prices. And of course, that the companies do not do a bit of grace, like Valve.
Taking advantage of the currency exchange
It is an open secret. Accessing digital stores in other countries allows you to obtain prices with conversions that border on the absurd, being able to achieve discounts equivalent to 50% in a recently launched game by the simple fact of buying in another currency. It is a practice that is widely used by users, and that many stores have been able to take advantage of, since many boast of a catalog in which to acquire keys for market games with different currencies.
Users are delighted with these methods, but it seems that Valve or major distributors were not in the trouble of allowing it, and the European Commission did not like a hair.
A fine in favor of the single market
In a statement published on the official website, the European Commission has confirmed that it has sanctioned Valve, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax with a total of 7.8 million euros (distributed in different amounts) for violating European antitrust rules.
The key is that these companies generated keys that were geographically blocked on Steam , so users could not buy and activate the license in certain countries. According to the published document, Valve has been the only company that has not cooperated in the investigation, and that is why it has taken most of it, having to pay a fine of no less than 1,624,000 euros .
On the other hand, Capcom did do its part and saw the sanction reduced by 15%, remaining at 396,000 euros, while Bandai Namco, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax Media obtained a reduction of 10%, leaving the sanction at 340,000 euros , 2,888,000 euros , 977,000 euros and 1,664,000 euros respectively.
The case has been closed after a long period of investigation that began in 2017 and that ended up confirming the violation of the antitrust law in April 2019, although it is estimated that these practices were active between 2007 and 2018 depending on the relationship with each editor.
Everyone is on Steam
If you are a PC gamer, you most likely have a Steam account and have ever purchased through the platform. The number of users in the service is immense, but the European Commission focused on the fact that more than half of Europeans play video games, so this geo-blocking affected a lot of people.
It is estimated that the affected number of games that were geographically blocked reaches 100 titles , and it seems that it affected not only digital games, but also physical ones.
