The European Union has opened an Antitrust investigation against Valve to find out if the company is taking part in geo-blocking actions within Europe. Also Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax are being part of the investigation.


The European commission is concerned that Valve and other companies have been restricting the trade of certain digital games creating a "parallel trade". This would allow the publishers to charge different prices in different EU member states, which would be against the EU's free trading principles. This would basically prevent customers from looking for the best deal and lock them down having to pay more for the same game or piece of software.

Right now it is not clear if Valve or any of the other companies involved in this investigation are breaking any EU laws. The investigation will be focused on how game keys can be used in other regions and how Valve and other game publishers have used this system to limit competition within the EU zone.

If the European Commission is successful gamers within the EU-zone will be able to buy games from other European stores without any limits or extra charges. For example there are regions in place for Poland and the Czech Republic only.




Source: KitGuru