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EU Charges Valve and 5 Game Publishers With Unfair 'Geo-Blocking' (venturebeat.com)
The European Commission charged Valve, the owner of a video distribution platform, and five game publishers on Friday with preventing EU consumers from shopping around within the European Union to find the best deal for the games they offer. From a report: The case is the latest move by EU antitrust regulators against cross-border curbs on online trade, key to what is seen as a major part of economic growth in the 28-country bloc. The Commission, which oversees competition policy in the 28 EU countries, said that the companies were Valve, the owner of the world's largest video game distribution platform 'Steam', and five game makers -- Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax. "In a true digital single market, European consumers should have the right to buy and play video games of their choice regardless of where they live in the EU," European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. The Commission has sent what it calls a "statement of objections" to the companies, allowing them to reply and request hearings to present their arguments.
Let's hope that they won't raise the poorest regions' prices up to the level of the richest regions' levels.
There are so many others out there guilty of the same beyond just games. The movie/series industries in particular. I am sick and tired of Discovery Channel's geoblocking of their online content which forces me to pirate if I want to see their content that they never released for Nirwegian audiences in the first place, specifically Mythbusters. How I would love to be proved wrong.
There are so many others out there guilty of the same beyond just games.
Netflix has no control over region availability of content that is not theirs, so you'd have to ask why they do not go after studios...
Netflix itself is awesome, because all content produced by Netflix is available in all regions. As the Netflix library expands, more and more content is world-wide, a major plus to going with Netflix instead of some dinosaur of media that insists on keeping some things to specific regions of the Earth.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
People should be free to take a train and buy the games they want anywhere in the EU. Oh do they want to purchase games from the comfort of their own home? Seems like a missed opportunity to encourage gamers to leave their house.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Get gone, Gaben. Yuro commies don't want you around.
Steam makes a lot of effort to stop people from buying outside the EU. But within the EU it is pretty much "change your current location in the settings, PROFIT".
A couple of years ago I bought all my steam stuff from russian, ukrain, brasilian and indian resellers for like 10-30% of the EU/US prices. This ist pretty much impossible now because those "poor country editions" have been blocked from starting for a couple of years in the EU. Though all my old stuff still works if I would buy a current game it would be geo blocked.
Nowadays I buy the british and rumanian editions. These are always working fine and without geo blocking. Although these are lot more expensive than russian/etc edition they are still less expensive than DE editions. And come uncut.
"Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
Do they require this of petrol companies as well, or are their prices not different by location? As far as Valve goes, you can activate games not purchased on Steam, so just purchase it in the store if you don't like the price.
Also, didn't the movie industry pretty much invent geo blocking? Or was it the publishing (book) industry? Are they going after them as well?
--- Keep the choice with the user..
HEy EU people, Don't forget EPic Gamestore, and their "exclusive" practices. Seems like a national security issue to me.
and whether they think they can win in court. In Netflix's case the volume is probably lower ($13/mo vs $60-$80 per game). For some of the bigger offenders it probably comes down to the difficulty of winning. Not that the EU won't do just that. Their consumer watchdogs seem to have some teeth unlike America. But in these cases you go after low hanging fruit first.
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they just enforce what the developers and publishers demand.
PSN? Xbox Live?
To do so would mean they make less money. Every copy costs 0c. To the nearest cent.
if my coffee cup is not on a coaster, this is not a problem, but I can adjust it by putting it on a coaster.
Remember, too, that copyrights are government grants. If you piss off the government, they will just refuse to recognise your copyrights.
And yes, it does let the EU do that.
IN ESTONIA. So I will go to the estonian site. There they refuse to let me. So the EU is telling them to fucking get their act together and, since their costs in Estonia are the same as their price in Estonia, they should let me buy at the Estonian price, since it's pretty easy to get to the Estonian site. YOU used the "go to an online store", but you forgot there was an Estonian web served up too. Why can't I go there?
You don't LET me haggle, though. So your scenario is already broken. I can't haggle, so you can't "haggle" by changing the prices by region. And if you claim "Oh, either accept the price or don't", then the same to you from the EU: either accept you have to let EU wide prices or get the fuck out. Note: if the copyrights are unable to be sold in the EU, then there's no value to the license, is there. You can only lose profits where you are selling, not where you refuse to.
They said "economic reality", YOU said "reality". Economic reality was the term the GGP used, they used it to ask what they thought this "economic reality" was. YOU didn't know what the fuck words mean, demonstrating the idiocy of the rightwingers in politics and real life entirely. And by pretending this was something "left wingy" you also proved why the right will never be able to be rational: they only want to see what fits their internal ideology. And if they have to pretend to do that, they'd fucking well do that.
Also, to Bert and the rest of you supporting his assertion: aren't you also saying that their fines and so on should be higher, proportionately, otherwise it isn't the same punishment..?
I wish they'd do the same for Kobo Books...
I can only buy from the Irish store because I have an Irish credit card. I can't buy from the UK store as I don't have a UK credit card. Books are generally much much cheaper on the UK store.
I can browse the UK store, but get redirected to the Irish store when I try to buy something.
Companies selling digitally delivered goods and services in the EU are required by law to gather evidence of where they customers are located.
The sales tax (value added tax) percentages, thresholds and rules vary widely across the EU. In the Netherlands you pay VAT on the first euro of sales. In the UK you can sell the equivalent of about 75000 euros of stuff before you need to charge VAT.
VAT is supposed to be paid to the country where the buyer is located. If you sell a pdf knitting pattern to someone in Bulgaria you are supposed to get the tax sent to the government of Bulgaria.
The intention is to stop an Amazon subsidiary in Luxembourg processing all their EU sales at the lowest VAT rate. In practice it means a person who, as a tiny business, wants to sell fifty $20 software licences or pdf knitting patterns has deal with calculating VAT using 28 different sets of rules and there is a chance of being audited by the Bulgarian tax authority.
It's a bureaucratic nightmare for small businesses.
"Valve, the owner of a video distribution platform ..."
Video games? Steam? Do either of those things ring a bell, msmash? It's incredible that you can be this ignorant of core subject matter in the domain of 'news for nerds' and still hold a job.
And the USA and USSR fought each other on those areas. So, yeah, bollocks to your claim there, merkin.
"The part where you think the practical implications of economics are subject to legislation" Which part is that, by the way. Or do you want everyone else to find your argument so you don't even have to work out what yours was?
yes, even as free markets define them. Proclaiming otherwise doesn't change the reality, that's just how reality works. What YOU want is the echo chamber of delusionals.
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Preis."
~Merkel
Or the rest of the criminal class you call "your republican party".
Except when corporations do it, then the drive is to the lowest price, yet somehow when we can do it, it will mean the prices will go up for many if not most. How can that happen if it's a free market? Maybe the corporations only work in a free market when they like it and you defend them for it. Asshole
"might not have the ability to do that" is ALSO not an argument, moron. So why should I put more effort in than you did in your claim? Want a better argument, present one that isn't "it MIGHT be hard!". And, no, the Berne convention is the source for the legislation. That is why it is a convention, not a law. Moron.
Grant additional license? What addition? Having to license for "The UK" requires it to be licensed to Welsh people, not upstanding English toffs. What fucking reason would there be to demand some country DOESN'T get a license? The only additon it imposes is the license is for a larger region. Fuck all else. No "rights" are given up, except racist ones, maybe. And those aren't protected.
I know that a free market models forces of supply and demand. Laffer curve and all that. And, no, that isn't anything to do without government interference. Supply exists without government interference and with. So does demand. They can be interfered, but you have made NO CASE that this is true here, and given that this is about copyright monopolies which only exist BECAUSE of governmet interference, you would be demanding that copyrights be removed so that supply and demand can be managed without government interference.
Is your stupidity due to being a free market fundamentalist libertarian who insists that government == very very bad and corporations == holy writ, or is it just because you're a steam fanatic who LOATHES the idea of anything interfering with the Holy Gabe?
Your argument is a nonsequitur.
If you meant it to be AT ALL relevant, you're going to have to prove that the supply or demand are being manipulated in a communist-planned-economy manner, NOT that it is being required to obey the laws on licensing to the EU states, without which laws there would be no fucking market.
"the EU digital single market isn't actually a free market in the economic sense" Nope, the EU digital market is a free market in the economic sense. The EU already "intervene" artificially by granting the monopoly called "copyrights", as well as laws like the US's DMCA protecting their DRM.
"through regulation to promote greater uniformity in price"
Nope. Moreover, they already do that for everything else. Go to a restaurant and look at the menu. See a lot of "TBA" on the price list? No? they're all filled in? Guess that must be a crime in the free market, the restaurant should be allowed to make up the price!
Or you're an idiot. There is no regulation promoting greater uniformity in price. Steam can still sell at different prices in each place, it's just I can shop at a different place too.
Fucking moron.
Are there several Steam companies competing to deliver games? No.
Steam alternatives ... GOG.com, GamersGate AB, Direct2Drive, Impulse, (sadly Desura is no more)
And there are game studio specific stores like Origin (EA) and Epic Games Store.
* Luxembourg is a country. But most of the population lives in Luxembourg City.
But if they decide to actually make money off their work, they will need to license it, and copyright doesn't allow them to refuse to sell to someone based on where they live. So I take it this is more about your libertarian idiocy rather than gabe crush, yes?
"So, unless there is also some basis in law for regional licensing"
There is: it IS licensed for sale in the EU, in each country. what ISN'T allowed is saying "sorry, you're not estonian, so you can't buy from our shop!".
Feel free to show me where THAT is allowed, you idiot.
That is a refusal to allow discrimination. Everyone's money spends the same, so you cannot charge more for the same service just because of who they are.
Moreover, why aren't customers allowed to price discriminate? That DEFINITELY leads to lower prices and better outcomes for everyone. Look at the profits made: those are the result of a lack of freemarket forces, which are supposed to drive the cost down to the marginal price.
"that the right holder gets to control who is allowed to perform certain acts with the work" But NOT who is allowed those rights and who isn't. The estate of JRRT can state that no derived work as a musical can be made, they can state no copies can be made, they can state that it cannot be used in a Nazi Party rally. But they CANNOT refuse people the rights they DO give. Everyone gets the rights the copyright holder permits.
Because they're just competition and all those exclusives are merely what is there. After all, you refuse to accept that GoG isn't a replacement because it doesn't have the same catalogue as Steam. Oh, what's that? You hate Epic store exclusives "because you hate having to install two sets of software to handle it"????
See the profits? Those are up for reduction because if they put the prices too high for "the rest of the EU", they will not sell any, and that means they have no money. Since after the first copy, everything is pretty much free to make, that's pure profit there. So they will pitch it the same as they do now: to what the market will bear. And, since they cannot segment the market so as to identify those that can be milked harder, the market will bear only lower prices. So if you were either to get $100 or $0 for your old sofa, but the $100 meant you "felt" that someone else was benefitting from a sofa "worth more" than $100, would you instead throw the sofa away and get fuck all, just so someone else doesn't get a good deal off you?
No?
Well, neither will Steam.
So since you didn't demand they were not allowed to have exclusives, there's no way they can get away with demanding Epic be disallowed an exclusive but not Steam (which STARTED with a Steam Exclusive, that was the ONLY reason why people installed it: Half Life 2). There are still exclusives in Steam.
But, hey, easy to prove me wrong. Show me where the rights have to include refusal to allow someone to have the rights everyone else has. Show me a book license that says "No negros can read this". Go on. Dare you.
"but as someone who has run businesses in this field for a long time" You mean you work selling books in a bookstore. Yeah, sorry, that doesn't give you any authority.
"money on real legal advice" Sure. And Trump has the biggest hands... Hey, but what you COULD do is show that you were lying when you said "might", because SURELY the really expensive lawyers you bought that GREAT advice from gave you better than a "Well, can't say for sure...", right?
" suspect it's not me" Nope, it is. And you've utterly failed to provide any evidence you have knowledge. Just insisted you must. Because you sure as shit haven't shown any knowledge.
And YOU insist that they should get a different price sheet from a local who walks into the same boutique with the same cash in the same denomination...? You don't work in a store. You don't even appear to have SHOPPED in one. See the prices marked? Do you think that these are only visible to some people?
Here in New Zealand, we pay more that other countries when, for example, you do the USD -> NZD conversion - for a game with zero distribution overheads. Pricing should be the same worldwide on all of these platforms.