Five Publishers, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Zenimax, Focus Home Interactive, Koch Media along with Valve have been fined by the European Commission for breaching EU antitrust laws.
In the press release released on Europa.eu, the publishers restricted cross-border sales and geo-blocked activation of PC games on Steam, which the Commission has determined is illegal. According to the Commission, bilaterally agreeing to geo-block certain games outside of a territory, violates antitrust rules and the fine each publisher will experience is listed below; fines were reduced for publisher’s that cooperated, Valve refused to cooperate and did not receive a fine reduction resulting in a € 1,624,000 fine:
You can read more about the background of the investigation in the official release. You can also read Valve’s response that they provided in a statement to PC Gamer earlier this week.
