The EU has fined Valve and other publishers a total of 7.8 million euros.
The reason for this is a multi-year procedure by the EU Commission on the subject of geoblocking. Valve and the publishers Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and Zenimax have used geoblocking to prevent EU citizens from purchasing their products more cheaply from non-EU countries.
What is geoblocking anyway?
Geoblocking is a technique of regional blocking of content on the Internet by a provider.
Valve itself has to pay the second highest amount of 1.62 million euros. The other publishers have received much lower penalties due to their cooperation, which was denied by the software giant.
The highest penalty despite the penalty reduction is borne by ZeniMax, also known as “Bethesda”. Here, an amount of 1.66 million euros is due.
The proceedings themselves were about the Steam platform and its country restrictions. In the years from 2010 to 2015, the publishers ensured that keys from Eastern Europe could not be used in the Western part because they were sold at much lower prices in Eastern Europe. However, this action is not permitted in the EEA (European Economic Area).
