Valve Corporation—Valve faces $6.4B antitrust class action over Steam's 30% commission and pricing parity enforcement
Wolfire Games filed antitrust suit in April 2021 after Valve threatened to remove their game for offering lower prices on competing stores. Internal emails show Valve actively monitoring and enforcing pricing parity. Certified as class action in November 2024 with ~32,000 game developer class members. Damages sought potentially exceed $6.4 billion under treble damages.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antitrust & Competition | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Consumer Protection | -against | secondary | -0.50 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.885 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (critical ×2) × confidence (0.59)
Evidence (1 signal)
Antitrust lawsuit against Steam certified as class action with 32,000 developers
The Wolfire v. Valve antitrust lawsuit was certified as a class action in November 2024, covering approximately 32,000 game developers who sold on Steam since 2017. Damages sought potentially exceed $6.4 billion.