Game-Makers Probed Over Contracts in Europe

Game-Makers Probed Over Contracts in Europe
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The European Commission accused Valve and five other video-game publishers of breaking competition rules, according to Bloomberg. The U.K. began a probe into the automatic renewal of online gaming deals from Nintendo and Sony’s PlayStation.

Contracts that penalize some customers because of where they live are a focus of several EU antitrust probes that have already fined Nike and Guess for unfairly curbing sales outside of one country. Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority is looking at the annual rollover of contracts, and barriers consumers face to canceling them. The investigations form part of a larger push to knock down barriers to online sales.

The EU’s preliminary view is that Valve, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax, prevent consumers from purchasing video-games in one country to play in another, which would be a breach of competition rules, the regulator said. “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,“ Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. “Consumers should not be prevented from shopping around between member states to find the best available deal.“

The announcement arrived an hour after the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority started a consumer-law investigation of Nintendo, Sony’s PlayStation, and Microsoft’s Xbox, into their terms for the auto-renewal of subscription products. “Our investigation will look into whether the biggest online gaming companies are being fair with their customers when they automatically renew their contracts, and whether people can easily cancel or get a refund,“ Andrea Coscelli, head of the CMA, said. “Should we find that the firms aren’t treating people fairly under consumer protection law, we are fully prepared to take action.“

The EU said Valve and the other five video-game publishers entered into bilateral agreements to prevent consumers from purchasing and using software acquired somewhere other than their country of residence, so-called “geo-blocking“, against EU antitrust rules. The EU began its investigation in 2017, targeting retailers that maybe setting unfair terms for who buys what and where.