Details have emerged about Valve boss Gabe Newell’s testimony from 2023 as part of a 2021 lawsuit filed by Wolfire Games alleging that the company had breached antitrust laws. According to Bloomberg, Newell spoke about PC gaming customers having “enormous choice” when it comes to deciding where they want to buy their games from. Along with this, he also denied the idea that there was an “unwritten rule” forbidding developers from selling games at lower prices through other stores.
“Customers have enormous choice, whether they buy the game on an Xbox, whether they buy it on Steam, whether they buy it on Epic Games Store or whether they buy it directly from software developers,” said Newell in his testimony.
As for the supposed “unwritten rule,” Newell denied its existence. Interestingly, he kept denying it even when he was shown communications that indicated that there were employees at Valve that attempted to enforce such a rule. He said, “Valve does not have a policy or practice of dictating prices to third-party software developers on other platforms.”
“Many of our partners and many of our customers are quite happy with the service that we’re providing,” he responded when asked how his company would react if such a rule were to be put in place.
Wolfire Games had filed its lawsuit against Valve as part of its attempts to represent game developers. In a statement from back in 2021, studio CEO David Rosen had alleged that Valve’s conduct and practices had harmed gamers and developers. This decision was made due to the studio’s desire to try and sell its 2017 title Overgrowth at a discounted rate on “new video game stores” that “charged much lower commissions than Valve.”
“But when I asked Valve about this plan, they replied that they would remove Overgrowth from Steam if I allowed it to be sold at a lower price anywhere, even from my own website without Steam keys and without Steam’s DRM,” he wrote. “This would make it impossible for me, or any game developer, to determine whether or not Steam is earning their commission. I believe that other developers who charged lower prices on other stores have been contacted by Valve, telling them that their games will be removed from Steam if they did not raise their prices on competing stores.”
Rosen explained that the crux of his lawsuit came down to the fact that Valve’s Steam was seen by many in the industry as an outright monopoly since, despite the presence of other stores like Epic Games Store, Steam had the majority of the user base, and missing a release on the platform would mean that a studio would have to give up on the majority of its potential sales.
He wrapped up his announcement by stating his belief that this was the main reason behind competing stores never succeeding as much as Valve has.
It is worth noting that there is likely some level of truth to Rosen’s allegations, at least when it comes to Valve’s dominant position in the market. However, as many Steam users will also point out, it tends to be their preferred platform to buy and play games on due to the fact that other stores, like the Epic Games Store, tend to be quite underbaked when it comes to features.
