Valve will face an antitrust lawsuit this week At present, the lawsuit is accepted by John C. coughenour, a U.S. district judge. It seems to be a continuation of Wolfire gaming's lawsuit against steam last April, accusing steam of using 30% high commission as a means of "exploiting publishers and consumers".
Steam takes 30% of all sales of a game to maintain the sales of the game on steam. Steam says the price is still as competitive as it was 18 years ago. Wolfire believes that valve illegally supports the platform in a way that is not conducive to competition by taking advantage of its dominant market position in the sales of digital PC games (75% of the complete PC game sales market in the lawsuit).
The focus of this lawsuit is the steam key price parity clause. This clause ensures that publishers will not sell their games at a better price on other platforms. Due to these practices, it is difficult for other stores to compete with steam. It is said that developers and publishers have no choice but to continue selling in valve's stores. At least that's what Wolfire gaming accused.
Judge coughenour once said: "the company allegedly implemented this system through a combination of written and non written rules, imposing its own conditions on how to sell and price even games that do not support steam. These allegations are sufficient to convincingly accuse illegal acts".