The lawsuit, filed earlier this week, accuses Valve of using its virtual monopoly of the PC gaming market to force developers to sell their games on all other digital storefronts at the same prices offered on Steam. The lawsuit alleges that under the "Most Favored Nations" clause of the Steam Distribution Agreement, the distributor agrees to offer its clients, in this case Steam, the best terms available anywhere outside of Steam Therefore, the company states that it cannot compete on price on other storefronts, such as the Epic Games Store or the Microsoft Store, and cannot compete effectively at all. [The MFN clause has the effect of keeping prices to consumers high because it lowers the price of PC games sold to consumers.

The MFN clause also acts as an additional barrier to entry by potential rival platforms and discourages innovation and curtails production because higher prices lead to lower sales of PC games."

In addition to Valve, the lawsuit also named CD Projekt, Ubisoft, kChamp Games, Rust LLC (which, given that the address listed in the lawsuit is Glendale, California, is actually the address of the "Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades), and Devolver Digital are named as defendants, each of whom "unlawfully contracted, under the Steam MFN, that the Game Developer Defendants, through a competing platform, would provide the games to Valve's unlawfully contracted, combined, or conspired to unfairly restrain trade in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act by agreeing not to sell PC game products at prices lower than those offered through the Steam platform. "

It also cites a January 2019 tweet from Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, who stated that Steam has a "veto" over prices:

The lawsuit alleges that both the Epic Games Store and the Microsoft Store are not more than 30 percent more expensive than Valve's noted that pricing has remained the same across the board, despite taking a considerably smaller cut from sales via the storefront than the 30 percent that Valve claims; Epic boss Tim Sweeney has regularly cited this as one of the core benefits of the Epic Store and "The developer is not the only one who has the ability to create a game. However, the lawsuit argues that "developers are not independently choosing to price their PC games at the same level across platforms; they are obligated to do so because they have agreed to Steam's MFN treatment."

The lawsuit also claims that the Epic Store is "a way for developers to make their games available at the same price level across platforms.

"Without Steam's MFN, it would be in the independent economic interest of game developers to offer PC games at lower prices on platforms with lower fees than Steam's platform. Steam's MFN treatment forces game developers to consider the ultra-competitive fees of the Steam platform, and they cannot and will not lower their prices on rival platforms."

How sales on other storefronts are taken into account I do not know: BioShock:TheCollection is currently $60 on Steam, but is available for $12 on the Humble Store, which is currently on sale; from Valve's price constraints Games released exclusively on the freed-up Epic Store also do not appear to be available at significantly lower prices: the base edition of "Hitman 3," for example, costs $60, a fairly standard price point for a major release.

The lawsuit seeks a ruling that Steam's MFN clause is "anticompetitive and constitutes unlawful monopolization and monopoly maintenance," as well as an injunction against further anticompetitive conduct, monetary damages, and payment of legal costs. It is unclear why the lawsuit names Ubisoft, CD Projekt, Devolver Digital, and several indie studios as co-defendants while excluding all others who agreed to Steam's distribution agreement, but Devolver is preparing to fight in court He suggested that they are moving forward with the case.

"I have it on good authority that everyone at Devolver enrolled in law school today, so no one can answer this question until at least the end of the first semester," said Devolver rep Stephanie Tinsley in a statement.

We have emailed Valve for more information and will update if we hear back.

.