Valve, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media, and ZeniMax received a fine from the European Commission for geo-blocking.
We’ve all looked through many different sites to find a cheap price for a game we want to buy. It’s nothing strange. People in some countries pay a lot more for a game than many others. It’s just how the economy works. But, that’s why you have alternatives and many ways to locate a store in a country where the price is cheaper. However, seems like Valve and some publishers didn’t like that. That’s why Valve, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media, and ZeniMax made a deal. After that, certain Steam keys couldn’t be activated outside certain countries.
Let’s say you want to buy a game sold by Czechia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania distributors. Well, tough luck. You couldn’t active that Steam key outside those countries. This cunning strategy affected over 100 PC games. A scumbag move, and an illegal one at that. One that negates the benefit of the EU’s Digital Single Market. Yet, now that their plan got uncovered they suffer the consequences.
In conclusion, Valve got hit with a total fine of € 1 624 000 for geo-blocking Steam keys. You can see how much the 5 publishers got fined with down below. Read more about this whole ordeal here.
Hey, at least we over at HRK Game tell you in which countries the games can be activated and in which they can’t. We have the best prices as well.
