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EU Businesses The Almighty Buck

EU Charges Valve and 5 Game Publishers With Unfair 'Geo-Blocking' (venturebeat.com) 129

The European Commission charged Valve, the owner of a video distribution platform, and five game publishers on Friday with preventing EU consumers from shopping around within the European Union to find the best deal for the games they offer. From a report: The case is the latest move by EU antitrust regulators against cross-border curbs on online trade, key to what is seen as a major part of economic growth in the 28-country bloc. The Commission, which oversees competition policy in the 28 EU countries, said that the companies were Valve, the owner of the world's largest video game distribution platform 'Steam', and five game makers -- Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax. "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," European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. The Commission has sent what it calls a "statement of objections" to the companies, allowing them to reply and request hearings to present their arguments.
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EU Charges Valve and 5 Game Publishers With Unfair 'Geo-Blocking'

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  • Rising prices (Score:4, Insightful)

    by execthts ( 5198257 ) on Friday April 05, 2019 @09:58AM (#58389672)
    Let's hope that they won't raise the poorest regions' prices up to the level of the richest regions' levels.
    • On the other hand, many distributors have stuck to the idea of charging more for content in smaller (not necessarily richer) regions. Hopefully this will put an end to that. I also hope that we’ll soon be able to enjoy the same selection on Netflix as offered in the UK... though it’s likely that brexit will go through before they get around to dealing with Netflix.
      • Re:Rising prices (Score:4, Insightful)

        by fazig ( 2909523 ) on Friday April 05, 2019 @10:13AM (#58389770)
        Platforms like Netflix have to struggle with different issues like licensing the series, which can work differently for each country. If there are TV channels that already are a licence holder in that specific country this becomes even more complicated.

        The EU would first have to unify the licensing market in some way, or the member states would have to reach some consensus through other means, before this can happen.
        • Re:Rising prices (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Brave Guy ( 457657 ) on Friday April 05, 2019 @10:23AM (#58389824)

          Unfortunately, this argument also seems to have only one conclusion under current EU rules: platforms like Netflix can't offer content anywhere in the EU unless they hold the relevant licences for everywhere in the EU.

          This criticism, along with the pricing level problem I mentioned in another comment below, has been made repeatedly for about as long as the EU has been trying to establish a digital single market.

          • And all the while instead of addressing this obvious issue the EU has been going in the wrong direction and making rules that will further fracture their digital market.
          • Re:Rising prices (Score:5, Insightful)

            by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Friday April 05, 2019 @11:10AM (#58390132) Homepage Journal

            platforms like Netflix can't offer content anywhere in the EU unless they hold the relevant licences for everywhere in the EU.

            That's not really a problem, it will only require some adjustment. Nobody else will be able to, either, so the people who control the licenses will start providing licensing that permits such distribution. Otherwise they lose out on the sales entirely.

          • There's a simple solution for that, just don't allow any EU media company to enter into such a license contract going forward ... the problem will solve itself in due time as existing contracts expire.

          • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

            Or having a license anywhere in the EU automatically grants an EU-wide license since the EU doesn't allow something to be licensed in only one member state as that's an artificial restriction of trade.

            • Re:Rising prices (Score:5, Interesting)

              by Anonymous Brave Guy ( 457657 ) on Friday April 05, 2019 @11:56AM (#58390414)

              The trouble with this sort of argument is that IP law is mostly made at a global scale through mechanisms like WIPO treaties. The EU might not have the ability to enforce arbitrary restrictions on IP and licensing like that.

              • by Anonymous Coward

                And yes, it does let the EU do that.

                • There's a lot more to international IP law in 2019 than just the Berne Convention, and "Yes, it does" is not exactly a powerful argument.

                  The principle of copyright is that the rightsholder gets to determine who is allowed to perform certain restricted acts with the work. The function of most international copyright law today is to extend those same rights across almost the whole global market, in particular enforcing the rights of copyright holders in one place against people using the work in restricted wa

          • Re:Rising prices (Score:5, Insightful)

            by dabadab ( 126782 ) on Friday April 05, 2019 @12:02PM (#58390464)

            Unfortunately, this argument also seems to have only one conclusion under current EU rules: platforms like Netflix can't offer content anywhere in the EU unless they hold the relevant licences for everywhere in the EU.

            That's patently untrue. Steam is not charged because it does not sell something in regions where it is legally not allowed to: that would be absurd. Also, the EU has already explicitly acknowledged the problem of distributing digital content in a fragmented market where you may not have license in all the EU states and it's OK with a partial distribuion so much that it already has regulation for this exact situation.

            • The EU still allows that exception. But it has also explicitly stated that this law is a first step towards EU-wide licenses, and it hopes to abolish or severely limit such exceptions at some point.
            • Sure, at the moment the EU is basically part-way to its ideal conclusion, but it's been fairly clear about the direction of travel and where it intends to end up. The intent is to have a digital single market where the rules are entirely uniform across all member states and the sorts of pragmatic exceptions that are tolerated today have been eliminated.

          • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

            The entire point of this endeavour is that you cannot have a licence for "region in EU" and segment the common market. You can only have a licence for entire market. If you have a licence for "some part of the market", you may as well not have a licence. Which means such licences will no longer sell.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            That's wrong, the rules do allow different countries to have different content available. The EU even made an FAQ explaining this here: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-r... [europa.eu]

            The issue is that if someone takes out a Netflix subscription in their country of residence and then goes to a different EU country for work or a holiday, they need to have access to all the content from their home country.

            That's not what TFA is about though, TFA is talking about the ability to buy games from other regions and have them work

            • The situation today is clearly only intended to be temporary, though. The EU's openly stated goal is uniformity across the whole digital single market, it's just that some forms of portability and pricing constraints are already required while certain liberties are tolerated for the time being.

      • Part of problem with digitally distributed is that some of the typical market forces no longer appear. You have extremely low production costs (making a new copy is trivial). You have extremely low costs for storing inventory (it's all digital). And there's no external distributor who's buying for $x and trying to resell for $y.

        This was one of the biggest things I saw when digital games became popular and physical copies started going away. With a physical copy of a game you'd see the price drop by at lea

    • Of course they will. As someone who sells digital products to customers around the world, I have to wonder what else the EU ever thought was going to happen in this situation.

      You can call the 28 a single market, but if the purchasing power of people in the relatively wealthy member states is several times that of people in the relatively poor member states and you prohibit market segmentation, the only options you leave your merchants are making all prices the same at some level they choose. Anyone below th

      • by Anonymous Coward
        That is how the market in the US works when things are sold beyond state boarders, or isn't it?
      • by Anonymous Coward
        If you sell digital products, your production costs are the same regardless of where you sell your product. The only reason to charge more in some areas is that you can.
        • The only reason to charge more in some areas is that you can.

          Yes, and the only reason to charge less in some areas is because your buyers won't pay more. Welcome to economics 101. Merchants are in business to make a living, and they need to bring in at least enough revenue to leave a reasonable profit after costs. If artificially distorting the market to force uniform pricing prevents that, the product or service won't be available at all to anyone.

      • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        The purchasing power of people within any market will vary, and any pricing will inherently discriminate against those who can't afford it... Not everyone can afford a ferrari for instance..
        The difference with digital content is that the pricing is totally arbitrary, and has no relation to the cost of actually providing the content.

        • The purchasing power of people within any market will vary, and any pricing will inherently discriminate against those who can't afford it...

          Of course, and merchants often segment markets as a result. That's basic economics at work. The difference here is that the EU is artificially distorting what would happen in a free market for ideological reasons, and there are a variety of adverse consequences to doing that.

          The difference with digital content is that the pricing is totally arbitrary, and has no relation to the cost of actually providing the content.

          That's not entirely true because of issues like taxes and regulatory compliance, but sure, the basic idea is correct.

          Now, please consider this thought experiment. You have an idea for a product with a potential global market of exactly

      • This is a textbook example of the EU's idealistic principles coming into contact with economic reality
        And which part of: the economic reality is wrong, don't you grasp?
        Just because one is richer you take more money from him? For what reason? The service is the same, the costs are the same.

        The proposals are not about costs anyway, they are about not even delivering the service. Why can I not see the same movie in Estonia that I see in Germany? Why are some services simply saying: "uh ... you are not at home?

        • And which part of: the economic reality is wrong, don't you grasp?

          The part where you think the practical implications of economics are subject to legislation.

          Economics is primarily a mathematical discipline. Given a certain set of rules, it attempts to model what will happen next. How realistic the results of your models are depends primarily on how realistic your description of the rules is.

          Just because one is richer you take more money from him? For what reason? The service is the same, the costs are the same.

          Because some people will both value a product more highly than others and be able to pay that higher price, and under some conditions in a free market it is favourable to allow differ

          • Because some people will both value a product more highly than others and be able to pay that higher price That is not what it is about.
            It is about me sitting in Germany and having a contract with Netflix, and when I travel to Spain: I can not see my movie I have paid for in Germany! Or when I'm in Thailand, it tells me: nope you can only watch in Germany!

            The rest of your argument is bollocks. The service is the same, so the price should be the same. Just asking for more because you believe he is willing t

            • I described a thought experiment in another comment [slashdot.org] to illustrate why allowing price discrimination can ultimately result in better outcomes for everyone under some circumstances. Perhaps instead of arguing based on your personal moral standards, which is inevitably subjective, you'd like to explain how your version would help some or all of the participants more in the scenario I described there?

            • Take that up with BREIN, as they insisted a long time ago that German citizens be subject to Geo-fencing for content.

    • I have a feeling that is exactly what they're going to end up doing. If it winds up driving people towards piracy, that's just one more thing for them to bang on about and then the government can enact even more draconian measures to try and solve a problem it created in the first place.
    • Let's hope that they won't raise the poorest regions' prices up to the level of the richest regions' levels.

      My first thought on reading TFS was that the simple solution is to set one price in the EU - the highest price they are currently charging any member nation....

      Which'll probably cost them some customers, and might even cut into their profit margin. But you never can tell, since most of the customers in the richer countries will probably just pay the higher fee....

      • by Cederic ( 9623 )

        My first thought on reading TFS was that the simple solution is to set one price in the EU - the highest price they are currently charging any member nation....

        Technically the optimal price will be a little lower than that.

        So people in high priced EU countries will benefit, people in the rest of the EU will lose out. Overall it'll encourage further migration from poor to wealthy regions within the EU, further exacerbating existing regional wealth discrepancies and boosting migration related anti-EU sentiments.

        But what else can the EU do, without betraying their vision of a single market (or indeed, their seeming mandate to enrich certain countries to the detriment

    • Let's hope that they won't raise the poorest regions' prices up to the level of the richest regions' levels.

      Of course they will. One market = one price for everyone. That is fair, no?

  • by Quakeulf ( 2650167 ) on Friday April 05, 2019 @09:59AM (#58389680)
    There are so many others out there guilty of the same beyond just games. The movie/series industries in particular. I am sick and tired of Discovery Channel's geoblocking of their online content which forces me to pirate if I want to see their content that they never released for Nirwegian audiences in the first place, specifically Mythbusters. How I would love to be proved wrong.
    • There are so many others out there guilty of the same beyond just games.

      Netflix has no control over region availability of content that is not theirs, so you'd have to ask why they do not go after studios...

      Netflix itself is awesome, because all content produced by Netflix is available in all regions. As the Netflix library expands, more and more content is world-wide, a major plus to going with Netflix instead of some dinosaur of media that insists on keeping some things to specific regions of the Earth.

      • by lgw ( 121541 )

        If only there was enough good Netflix-original content to actually matter.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It's not just about content availability, although that is part of it. It's about prince discrimination. I've bought stuff from Amazon France before because it was much cheaper than the same item on Amazon UK. No extra taxes or duty to pay due to the EU single market and customs union.

    • by bn-7bc ( 909819 )

      No sh.. I’m dtill waiting for primevideo.com to release Babylon 5 ouside the US and UK, come on are the owners such monomantal scombags that norveveb smazon can get acresnwble deal out ofvthem

    • and whether they think they can win in court. In Netflix's case the volume is probably lower ($13/mo vs $60-$80 per game). For some of the bigger offenders it probably comes down to the difficulty of winning. Not that the EU won't do just that. Their consumer watchdogs seem to have some teeth unlike America [arstechnica.com]. But in these cases you go after low hanging fruit first.
    • by Cederic ( 9623 )

      I stopped subscribing to my favourite sports team's online media because of this.

      They published 'free to access' footage of a match as a teaser to encourage people to sign up for the full highlights package. I tried to view the teaser and got told that it wasn't available to me because I was in the same country as the team, and this footage wouldn't be available in my country until the next day.

      They got an email telling them that giving content to people for free while refusing it to their paying customers

  • People should be free to take a train and buy the games they want anywhere in the EU. Oh do they want to purchase games from the comfort of their own home? Seems like a missed opportunity to encourage gamers to leave their house.

    • Indeed. If you walked into a bistro in Luxembourg and demand that you should only have to pay the same prices as you would be charged if you were in Romania, you would be laughed at. If the EU wants to pretend that it's one big and equal market, it should start taxing the hell out of the wealthy members in order to redistribute that to those with weaker economies. Otherwise the reality is that it makes sense to charge different prices based on location, because some countries are better off than others.
      • by fazig ( 2909523 )
        Wouldn't that be socialism? And isn't that what people are already complaining about so much?


        Sarcasm aside, I've actually been in Romania last year, visiting my place of birth and some relatives that moved back to their homestead/farm, because they like the climate there more than in Germany.
        When shopping in one of the bigger cities I noticed that German supermarket chains have sprouted all over the place there.

        There They have a lot of products that are originally from western European states like Ge
        • EU's been bitching about this for a while. Supposedly identical products being actually different (i.e. worse) and sometimes even more expensive in the EE markets is a pretty common thing.

          It's still surprising that despite living like 200km from Germany, I can't buy most of the products available there, huge global brands excepted obviously.

          • by fazig ( 2909523 )
            The perplexing part to me was that I could see plenty of Romanian people buying a that overpriced stuff in large quantities. Shopping carts stuffed with junk food like Chio Chips (German brand) and soft drinks like Fanta (German origin) and Coca Cola. This was in one of the Kauflands in Sibiu or like we Transylvanian Saxons are calling it - Hermannstadt.
            I know that at least some of them work in Germany for a couple of months and then head back home to spend money there, while others certainly have to manag
      • by Megol ( 3135005 )

        The whole idea behind the EU is creating a single market and your example is really bad.
        Does a digital delivery cost more to Romania* than Luxembourg? No. Does it cost more to operate a bistro in Luxembourg than Romania? Yes.
        Are there several Steam companies competing to deliver games? No. Are there several bistros in Luxembourg (and Romania) in a competitive market? Yes.

        (* I'll keep your city-to-country comparison but that's... bad)

  • Steam makes a lot of effort to stop people from buying outside the EU. But within the EU it is pretty much "change your current location in the settings, PROFIT".

    A couple of years ago I bought all my steam stuff from russian, ukrain, brasilian and indian resellers for like 10-30% of the EU/US prices. This ist pretty much impossible now because those "poor country editions" have been blocked from starting for a couple of years in the EU. Though all my old stuff still works if I would buy a current game it wo

  • Do they require this of petrol companies as well, or are their prices not different by location? As far as Valve goes, you can activate games not purchased on Steam, so just purchase it in the store if you don't like the price.

    Also, didn't the movie industry pretty much invent geo blocking? Or was it the publishing (book) industry? Are they going after them as well?

    • Petrol companies charge vastly different amounts at service stations within the same city. I've seen as much as 10c/litre difference for the same company only a few km apart.

      Different countries have different taxes on petrol/diesel too, so prices will differ in different countries. There's nothing stopping me bringing my car to Germany to top it up. But I can't import from Germany without paying Irish taxes on the fuel.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    they just enforce what the developers and publishers demand.

    • by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Friday April 05, 2019 @11:18AM (#58390198)

      they just enforce what the developers and publishers demand.

      By that logic, the mafia's goons aren't culpable for their crimes since they're merely enforcing what their bosses are demanding of them.

      Without regard for whether or not Valve is actually at fault here, one thing I can say definitively is that engaging in an activity at someone else's request doesn't magically absolve you of your legal responsibilities.

  • by Tomahawk ( 1343 ) on Friday April 05, 2019 @02:09PM (#58391288) Homepage

    I wish they'd do the same for Kobo Books...

    I can only buy from the Irish store because I have an Irish credit card. I can't buy from the UK store as I don't have a UK credit card. Books are generally much much cheaper on the UK store.

    I can browse the UK store, but get redirected to the Irish store when I try to buy something.

  • EU VAT rules (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Companies selling digitally delivered goods and services in the EU are required by law to gather evidence of where they customers are located.

    The sales tax (value added tax) percentages, thresholds and rules vary widely across the EU. In the Netherlands you pay VAT on the first euro of sales. In the UK you can sell the equivalent of about 75000 euros of stuff before you need to charge VAT.

    VAT is supposed to be paid to the country where the buyer is located. If you sell a pdf knitting pattern to someone in B

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