A US District Court Judge has deemed the evidence “sufficient” to proceed with the lawsuit after all.
The lawsuit against Valve over how it administers and uses the Steam platform has been given the green light once more after the same judge dismissed the case last November.
The company suing Valve is Wolfire Games, the developer of such games as GLFighters, Black Shades, Lightning’s Shadow, Overgrowth, and Desperate Gods and originator of the Humble Bundle.
The founder of Wolfire Games David Rosen alleges that Valve is using its digital storefront and major control over the PC Gaming market to “exploit publishers and consumers.”
Wolfire originally filed the lawsuit last year in November which the judge dismissed pending a refile in 30 days, due to “failing to meet necessary standards and not articulating sufficient facts to plausibly allege an antitrust injury based on that market”. Wolfire then went ahead and refiled and that same judge has now declared the lawsuit may go ahead.
Valve allegedly utilizes its control of the PC gaming market through Steam to stifle competition by taking “an extraordinarily high cut from nearly every sale that passes through its store,” and keeping game prices artificially high according to the original lawsuit filed by Wolfire.
The lawsuit also criticized Steam’s Key Price Parity Provision, which prohibits publishers and developers from pricing their games lower on other platforms, even if those sites take a smaller cut, such as The Epic Games Store.
Steam’s 75 percent market share and 30 percent cut were not allowed to proceed, however, issues regarding the Steam Key Parity Provision were found “sufficient” to proceed to trial.
According to a ruling released on the 9th of May, the updated filing “provides additional context” to the previous complaints rather than making any new claims. A note regarding Valve’s 2001 acquisition of the World Opponent Network [WON], which it shut down a few years later, “forcing gamers onto the Steam platform,” is one such example.
The ruling also stated:
“This denotes market power earlier on than described in the CAC [class action complaint, and while both complaints indicate that, in those early days, Defendant was competing against brick-and-mortar game distributors, the SAC [second amended class action complaint] makes it clear that Defendant did not need market power to charge a fee well above its cost structure because those brick-and-mortar competitors had a far higher cost structure.”
The new lawsuit will proceed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.
Wolfire is in for a long, complicated, and expensive ride with this lawsuit against Valve as some of their “causes for action” against Valve have already been dismissed.
We will be keeping our ears open for the latest on this for you our loyal readers.