Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney backs $900 million lawsuit against Valve, claiming Steam is the last major platform clinging to a 30% fee structure.
Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Epic Games and Fortnite, is backing the recent £656 million (around $900 million) lawsuit against Valve, which has just received the green light from the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal.
The lawsuit, initiated by digital rights advocate Vicki Shotbolt, argues that Valve’s dominance in the PC gaming distribution market effectively prevents publishers from offering games and add-ons at lower prices on rival platforms. Additionally, it seeks compensation for millions of UK gamers who may have overpaid between £22 and £44 for games since 2018. The situation is quite complex, especially since Valve contends that Steam key resellers do facilitate transactions outside its platform, so a deeper dive into the details is warranted.
As a major competitor to Steam, Sweeney didn’t hold back in sharing his thoughts on the matter. He tweeted, “Steam’s rules do explicitly prohibit games from steering players to competing purchase methods, forcing everyone to pay 30% to Valve. Apple and Google did the same until the court explicitly found this practice to be unlawful. Now they don’t!”
While it’s not entirely clear which specific rule Sweeney is referencing, Steam’s own guidelines indicate that “it’s OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time.” Valve also prefers that developers “don’t give Steam customers a worse deal than Steam key purchasers.”
Sweeney further elaborated, stating, “Today, in the USA, developers are free to steer users of iOS and Android apps to competing purchase methods. Apple and Google collect 0% on those transactions. On computers and smartphones, Valve is the only major store still holding onto the payments tie and 30% junk fee. A store can charge a fee for selling a product. What the court found is: after you’ve bought a game, the store can’t force all in-game commerce between you and the developer to go through them with 30% junk fees. It’s like a car dealership demanding 30% of gas purchases.”
In a follow-up, Sweeney got more specific, asserting that nearly all stores permit games to redirect players to an external website for transactions, but Steam does not allow “the developer selling you stuff directly from the app using their own payment screens or their own website.” However, several commenters challenged this claim, citing examples of Steam games that do indeed feature their own payment screens.
Sweeney reiterated his criticism of Steam’s practices, expressing concern over Valve’s impact on small developers.
