Valve, the development company of the game sales platform Steam, has been repeatedly sued by different game companies and developers for charging up to 30% of the fees. Although they have been rejected in the past, two studios, Wolfire and Dark Catt, are re-examining the case. After discussion, the lawsuit was again filed against Valve in the form of a class action lawsuit.
Foreign media GamesIndustry.biz recently found a legal document stating that the U.S. court decided to hear Valve’s collective antitrust lawsuit on Steam, and the plaintiffs were Wolfire and Dark Catt Studios, which had been rejected by the court.
The incident originated in April 2021. Wolfire Studio filed an antitrust complaint against Valve. The main reason was that the 30% commission fee was too high. It believed that this was using Steam’s dominant position to drive up prices and was a kind of exploitation of developers. However, the lawsuit was dismissed by the court in November of the same year.
In addition, in June 2021, VR game developer Dark Catt filed a lawsuit for the same reason, and it was also returned by the court in November. However, the difference is that the court believed that some of the developer’s accusations were valid, so it could be based on the lawsuit. Partially re-filed the lawsuit.
In May 2022, Wolfire filed the lawsuit again after adjusting its arguments. In July, the court chose to merge the trials of Wolfire and Dark Catt based on the similar purposes of the two companies’ claims, which further escalated the intensity of the lawsuit.
After consulting the US court documents, the 4Gamers editorial department found that the last trial of this case is currently in June 2024.