What we know so far: Valve has spent years fighting lawsuits in the US and UK alleging that it abuses its dominant market position to impose high fees on developers, which are then passed on to consumers. Newly uncovered emails suggest that Valve employees threatened developers, including major publishers such as Ubisoft, while CEO Gabe Newell publicly denied the existence of a price-parity clause.
According to transcripts recently obtained by Bloomberg, Valve CEO Gabe Newell told lawyers in 2023 that the company does not pressure developers to synchronize prices on Steam and other storefronts. However, emails revealed as part of a lawsuit suggest that Valve previously exerted exactly that kind of pressure on Warner Bros. and Ubisoft.
Plaintiff Wolfire Games has accused Valve of forcing most developers to accept a 30% commission on game sales, even when other storefronts – such as the Epic Games Store – charge lower fees. In 2024, Wolfire was allowed to combine its lawsuit with another case filed by VR game developer Dark Catt into a class-action suit.
Additionally, earlier this year, a UK court ruled that Valve must defend itself against another class-action lawsuit alleging that its commission structure indirectly inflates prices for consumers. If Valve loses the case, it could face damages of nearly $1 billion.
Steam has become synonymous with PC gaming. Major companies such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Epic Games, Amazon, and Microsoft have so far struggled to meaningfully shift users to alternative storefronts or to withhold their biggest titles from Steam. Even Call of Duty eventually returned to Steam after a brief period of exclusivity on Battle.net.
Although frequent discounts helped Steam grow its user base, the platform has also steadily expanded its feature set, while competing launchers often lack basic functionality. For example, the Epic Games Store took three years to introduce a simple shopping cart feature.
In a recent survey, 72% of developers described Steam as a monopoly. For the most part, only the most popular PC titles that launch outside the platform – such as League of Legends, Roblox, Minecraft, and Genshin Impact – can sustain large audiences without relying on Steam.
David Rosen, founder of Wolfire Games and Humble Bundle, has claimed that Valve threatened to delist one of its games, Overgrowth, if it was sold elsewhere at a lower price, though Valve disputes the allegation.
Separately, emails presented in litigation suggest the company threatened to remove Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege after Ubisoft offered a $15 starter pack exclusively on its own store. Valve employee Kassidy Gerber also reportedly told Warner Bros. in 2017 that Steam removed pre-orders for Middle-earth: Shadow of War because prices on other storefronts were significantly lower.
When lawyers presented this evidence to Gerber and Newell, they reiterated that Valve has no formal policy of dictating prices to developers. However, Gerber acknowledged that Steam enforces content parity requirements.
"Customers have enormous choice," Newell testified in defense of Steam. "[they can choose] whether they buy the game on an Xbox, whether they buy it on Steam, whether they buy it on Epic Games Store, or whether they buy it directly from software developers."