Recently, journalists from Aftermath drew attention to a new lawsuit. Two gamers — Max Rockman and Randall Moring — sued Microsoft over alleged anti-competitive practices, claiming the company colluded with Valve.
It is alleged that Microsoft receives kickbacks from Valve as a reward for “agreeing not to compete with Steam.”
The media cites an excerpt from the lawsuit:
Without the cooperation of some of the largest companies in the PC gaming industry, Steam would not have been able to achieve and maintain the dominant position it has enjoyed for at least a decade. Microsoft is one such company.
The plaintiffs claim that the companies allegedly entered into an agreement on release dates and prices, which suppresses competition and creates a burden for ordinary players who “pay higher prices than they would in a competitive market, and also suffer from reduced game quality and limited choice.”
The plaintiffs claim that Microsoft and Valve themselves acknowledged this practice. They refer to the case “Valve Corp. v. Abbruzzese” in which Valve is trying to overturn an arbitration decision. In one of the documents related to the case, filed by Valve itself, the company mentions a 2011 arbitration hearing where the arbitrator stated that a provision in the distribution agreement between Valve and Microsoft constituted “illegal horizontal price-fixing” (price collusion).
Valve disagreed with this decision and presented its arguments, in particular, pointing out that the arbitrator did not follow the rule of law and that the agreement between Microsoft and Valve only concerned Microsoft's pricing for its own games.
Gamers also referred to the case “Wolfire v. Valve Corporation” — developers sued the company over a 30% commission. For this case, an economist prepared a report that mentioned a letter from a Microsoft employee from 2024.
This letter states:
Historically, the agreement to publish a game on Steam required product and price parity. When I studied it before the release of Age: DE a few years ago, I found that we could set any price before release on Steam, but after release on Steam, we needed to ensure price parity with other digital channels. In the case of a simultaneous release [Gears of War 5] on Steam and the Windows Store, I would assume that Steam requires not to undercut the price relative to their platform after release on Steam.
The expert's report also contains another letter in which one Microsoft employee discusses Valve with another. One employee asks if Steam requires price parity, and in response, another employee (also from Microsoft) replies: “Yes — absolutely requires… It's not formally stated in the Steamworks documentation, but it's always discussed in person.”
Journalists noted that the lawsuit does not provide evidence of the “kickback” allegations, and also drew attention to another point related to the representatives of these two gamers. Among their lawyers is Bucher Law — one of the law firms that in 2023-2024 tried to initiate mass arbitration against Valve. At that time, Valve itself sued the firm for wrongful interference and “extortion.” In 2025, the case was closed, and Valve removed the arbitration clause from its user agreements.
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