The General Court decides on the geo-blocking of video games by Steam to ensure the effectiveness of exclusive licenses between publishers and distributors.
On September 27, the General Court issued a ruling that was at least interesting when weighing the inherent territorial nature of Intellectual Property and the principle of free competition recognized in Article 101 of the TFEU.
The matter was between the European Commission and Valve Corporation, a company in the video game sector that runs the Steam platform, and which everyone who has played on a PC will immediately recognize. Video game publishers (and holders of their respective intellectual property rights) normally enter into distribution agreements with Steam so that users can purchase them through the platform, in turn providing Steam to the publishers with their own technology so that they can develop their games. video games, as well as different services and technical solutions.
The video games available on Steam can be purchased either directly on the platform, or through third-party distributors, who offer a download code, which when activated on Steam allows you to access the game. These codes are known as “Steam keys”. Among the services offered by Steam, a geo-blocking function is allowed, or geo-blocking , which works in two ways. On the one hand, there are ‘activation restrictions’, which limit the activation of the video game to a single territory, but once activated in the authorized territory it can be played anywhere. And, on the other hand, there are execution restrictions, which not only limit the territory where the video game can be activated, but also limit the ability to play it to that activation territory.
This led the Commission to initiate an investigation ex officio that ended with the decision on January 20, 2021, in which it was concluded that the five video game publishers investigated together with Valve violated art. 101 of the TFEU as well as art. 53 of the Agreement on the European Economic Area. This decision was appealed by Valve and it is on this appeal that the General Court decides.
