ASUS - Valve & Others Are Subject of EU investigation For Illegal Price Fixing

The EC is investigating if bilateral agreements between Valve and the video games publishers actually restrict trade within the Single Market by preventing consumers buying cheaper versions of games in other member states.

 

More raiding of American companies by the EU in order to raise cash--backdoor taxation--under false pretenses. Beware the government claiming to look out for consumer interests as generally that is just a cover for what they want to do that actually will hurt consumer interests, imo. DoJ in the US has been just as crummy in the past. What happens is that the "fines" get passed on to consumers, just like all taxes the state collects are paid by a company's customers ultimately. One of the most routinely hidden causes for inflation is taxation, etc. It's like the cost of petrol in the US--@ $2 a gallon, let's say, state and federal tax comprises 80 cents of the total cost...! But when you hear about the "soaring cost of gasoline" the amount we would pay sans local, state and federal tax would be ~55% of the current cost!... I've always found it amazing, really.

 

I thought only areas outside of EU get different prices, like the cheap prices for Russia some apparently take advantage of.

 

No not really. Its a complicated situation, people in Eastern Europe earn 4 times less than what we earn in West-Europe. Valve/Publishers made EU regions to handle this and to account for differences in wages and income but apparently the european commision doesn't give a f*ck and want to screw eastern europe by giving everyone in Europe the same prices.

I hope you can see how retarded it is to make someone pay 60 EU when their income per month is around 400 EU.

 

That's it if you take the corporations' side. From the other pov it means western people would flock to the eastern stores to buy the cheaper game codes, which would of course make many a happy merchant in the east and many a happy customer in the west. The corporations would make less money, though, which perhaps isn't viable for them.

 

You need to have your facts checked. Yes, people earn less in Eastern Europe, BUT, this is very important BUT, they pay the same full game prices as everyone else on Steam, Origin, Uplay, Xbox, PSN, etc. I don't know if there is any EU country which pays less, keep in mind we are talking about EU here. I'm sure there are some non EU eastern European countries like Belarus that have really cheap games but this is outside of this topic.

 

I know, right? It's ironic how the corporations are allowed and encouraged to reap the benefits of globalization but customers aren't allowed to do the same.

 

If they get fined, well, the money should go back to us, the people, the customers, not back into eu coffers.

 

Before Feb 2016, valve separated the EU into two zones.

Tier 1:
Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Netherlands, Sweden or Switzerland.

And Tier 2:
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain.

The pricing was different between the two zones, an example I found was:

Team Fortress 2
Tier 1: 19,99€
Tier 2: 14,99€

In Feb 2016, Valve dropped the tiered system.

http://segmentnext.com/2016/02/18/steam-drops-2-tier-pricing-in-eu-increases-prices-for-games/

Also from what I understand, the game developer sets the price for each tier. So while Valve might have been discounting Tier 2 countries - not every developer on Steam was required to do so. I can't find a real reason as to why they dropped the tiered system. Perhaps it was because no other developers were using it although the article I linked suggests it was due to EU laws:

 

Most games where priced the same while some where more or less.
The statement that Tier 2 payed less for games is bogus.
We all payed in Euro and under the same VAT % and it's normal because our Currency is Fixed to EUR so nothing like Russians and Latin Americas pricing can be examined.
As for Sales that's individual for every Developer/Publisher And here lies the Problem.

PS: The biggest CRIME is $ = € ,practice that we endured and still endure most of the time.

 

@Denial

These tears were utter nonsense. Are you saying Albania has higher living standard than Norway or Monaco? And your TF2 example is so old and meaningless (game is free for years!), 99% of the time tier 2 price = tier 1 price. I know, because I live in tier 2 country and I had to pay full price 60 or 50 euro for new games for YEARS.

 

Asus isn't an American company....nor is Philips or Pioneer or Denon....

 

...

I don't live in the EU and I'm not familiar with most of Eastern Europe or the various standards of living there. I was merely clarifying that Valve did at one point separate the EU and did at one point charge differently depending on the country - which is what CalculuS wrote and you said was wrong. You may not have experienced it in your country - or any of the games you bought, but clearly at one point TF2 was different. Judging by the content I've read, the T2 pricing was rarely used as publishers opted to keep pricing the same across both tiers. That being said, Valve did offer the ability for Publishers to separate the pricing and Valve itself did lower prices slightly on it's games in the T2 region.

Also I guess this is the law that was passed that forced Valve to drop the T2 entirely:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/atyourservice/en/displayFtu.html?ftuId=FTU_5.9.4.html

 

Good lord, we have whole EU parliament assembly members here.

 

There is something like that in Russia for example, they have really low prices. But here, in Poland, we're earning 4 times less than Western Europe and still we got same prices, no regional pricing like in Russia at all (I'm talking about steam ofc).

It's really hard for us to buy new 60€ game. And yet nobody cares and nobody even understand why we're whining about high prices of the games. I see stupid answers like "this is only 60€ man, stop whining" all the time. Yeah, only 60€.. easy to say if you live in Germany or UK.

 

I still don't understand how steam can have a 'marketplace' where u sell items but aren't entitled to having that credit transferred to your bank account even though they charge u a transaction fee, its ridiculous.

 

Yeah, that needs to be changed asap. We need this store-credit loop-hole closed. If digital goods is still goods, then, digital cash is still cash.

 

Actually, alot of people make less - minimum wage is probably less than 1EU/hr (almost 250 eu for me at 170 hr/mo). I dont recall we EVER paying less for games, its always been those 60EU.