Wolfire Studios and Dark Catt Studios have been granted class action status for their continuing legal dispute with Valve.
A court document seen by GamesIndustry.biz shows their motion for class certification was granted by United States District Judge Jamal N. Whitehead. It transforms the antitrust lawsuit from being two developers versus the company behind Steam into a potentially much larger dispute.
According to the document, the class action will apply to any developers, publishers or individuals who paid a commission to Valve in connection with a game sale – referring to the 30% cut the Steam firm takes from each purchase – on or after January 28, 2017.
In the same order, the judge denied Valve's request to exclude the testimony of an expert, a Dr. Steven Schwartz, whom the two studios called to argue their case.
Both Wolfire Studios and Dark Katt will be the class representatives for the action.
Overgrowth developer Wolfire originally filed an antitrust lawsuit against Valve back in April 2021, claiming the company's 30% commission – which it described as "an extraordinarily high cut" – constitutes anti-competitive practices. It also argued that Valve uses its dominance to "exploit publishers and consumers."
This claim was initially dismissed in November 2021, but the developer updated and adapted its arguments before refiling in May 2022.
Meanwhile, multimedia production and VR game developer Dark Catt Studios filed its own antitrust suit against Valve in June 2021. This was partly dismissed in November 2021, but Dark Catt was able to continue with some of its claims.
A court order issued in July 2022 confirmed the two cases would be consolidated into one.
ArsNG on November 28th, 2024 at 22:17 UTC »
However, EGS games haven’t become cheaper for me even if they take 12% instead of 30%. What’s the point?
Affectionate-Print81 on November 28th, 2024 at 21:35 UTC »
Instead of trying to make a better platform they sue Valve instead.
Falkjaer on November 28th, 2024 at 21:04 UTC »
So I guess the lawsuit is basically claiming that Steam's 30% cut is unfair practices, it's too high for a marketplace that controls so much of PC game sales. I'm not really able to talk about what's a fair cut, I do know Steam's is higher than some other places, but I also don't see how charging a high cut is anti-competitive. Wouldn't their high cut be something that helps their competitors? Isn't that one of the big selling points Epic uses to draw developers?
I guess I'm basically curious what grounds they're trying to use to justify the idea that steam is taking unfair advantage of it's position. GoG and Epic games are out there, enough others have tried that there doesn't seem to be anything actually blocking people from making other marketplaces, it's just tough for publicly owned corporations to do a good job of it.
As a note: I'm not at all trying to defend Valve, I just don't really understand what is being argued.