A foundation representing Dutch PC gamers has filed a €220 million ($250 million) lawsuit against Valve Corporation, claiming the average Dutch gamer has lost €130 ($148) due to the company's allegedly anticompetitive practices on its Steam gaming platform. The claim, filed June 11 in the Hague by the Stichting Consumenten Competition Claims (SCCC) under the banner GameClaim, targets roughly 2 million accounts and argues that Valve's 85% market share is maintained through Most-Favored-Nation clauses that forbid developers from undercutting their Steam price on rival storefronts like Epic Games Store. The lawsuit challenges Valve's 30% commission, its Steam Wallet payment system, and rules barring developers from steering players toward alternative storefronts.
Steam's position in the gaming industry has grown substantially since its 2003 launch by Valve Software as a platform to update the company's own games. As of January 2026, more than 42 million players were online simultaneously through the platform, the games catalogue exceeds 120,000 titles—with 2025 alone seeing over 20,000 new releases—and revenue is estimated to have climbed past $16 billion. The PC gaming segment returned an estimated $43 billion in 2025, growing faster than console and mobile markets, while global games revenue reached $197 billion that year, comfortably exceeding worldwide cinema box office and recorded music combined. Nearly half the global population now plays something, and since 2020, roughly 20 films have been made inspired by video games.
The GameClaim case is not the first lawsuit Steam has faced, with similar arguments about the 30% cut, parity clauses, and anti-steering rules appearing across multiple jurisdictions. In the US in 2021, Wolfire Games and Dark Catt Studios sued Valve in a case that was dismissed, refiled, then consolidated, eventually winning class-action status in late 2024 and now includes any developer who has paid Valve a commission since 2017. In Britain, a collective action for some 14 million users has been cleared by the Competition Appeal Tribunal to proceed, with roughly £656 million ($866 million) at stake. The European Commission has already fined Valve for unlawful geo-blocking practices. Valve founder Gabe Newell has rejected all claims, pointing to cheaper consoles, rival stores like Epic Games Store, and direct downloads as evidence that no gamer is forced to use Steam.
The report argues that Valve's dominance emerged from consumer choice rather than coercion, noting that the platform's superiority in customer support, product variety, and seasonal sales drove voluntary migration to PC gaming. Epic Games Store, despite years of free game giveaways—including Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks, Citizen Sleeper, and RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 in June 2026 alone—holds an estimated 3% of global market share. The 30% fee that claims challenge is characterized as Steam charging for distribution, refunds, mod hosting, and market access, comparable to Wal-Mart charging for shelf space, and the rate has stayed consistent since the early 2000s. The report describes Steam's growth as a classic network effect: more developers attract more players, and more players attract more developers, concentrating value in the dominant platform. The conclusion warns that ending this dominance by judicial fiat instead of consumer choice is to prefer the regulator's taste to the customer's.