Poland seems to not like what they see from PlayStation and Steam.
As reported by Game World Observers, Poland’s UOKiK, AKA the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, has announced preliminary investigations on Steam and PlayStation Store, if they are violating Poland’s antitrust laws.
Steam may very much be the most popular of monopolies in the video game industry among fans. While competitors to Steam, such as Epic Game Store, itchio, and GOG, do exist, the market share and revenue Steam has towers over those competitors to an immense degree.
The situation is a little different for PlayStation Store, as it can be argued that Nintendo has seen more success on the eShop. But, it can also be said that Sony has managed to acquire a lot of exclusives from third party developers, that prejudice consumers that don’t have PlayStation Store. And that would be true if they had other consoles or not, or if they game on other platforms than consoles.
They lay out the potential antitrust practices as follows:
- Abusing their dominant position in the digital game distribution market;
- Exploiting game developers and imposing higher prices for players;
- Restricting the sale of games on rival platforms or other online stores;
- Interfering with the pricing and discount policies of game developers and publishers;
- Limiting market access to rival platforms and other digital service providers.
UOKiK president Tomasz Chróstny shared this statement:
“The digital game distribution market is displacing traditional sales. Gamers are increasingly less likely to buy games in boxes but are sourcing digital copies on online sales platforms. At the same time, we see that there may be restrictive practices by major players in this market.”
The UOKiK does not file charges against any entities during the preliminary investigation phase. However, if you were wondering just how serious the Polish government is in this investigation, they have already visited and inspected Sony’s Polish headquarters.
The UOKiK is collecting evidence for now, but if they are found guilty, companies like Sony and Valve are looking at stiff fines. Managers who made these decisions can face fines as high as $ 506,000, and companies can see 10 % of their annual revenue be taken as their fine.
It’s certainly interesting seeing these investigations play out months after Microsoft successfully finalized their acquisition of Activision Blizzard King. According to Florian Mueller in a recent tweet, the FTC’s appeal to block the deal has been sitting in the 9th circuit for 5 months now, but they should be deciding on it soon.
Poland, of course, was represented by the European Commission when they approved the Microsoft Activision deal. We don’t know if the timing had anything to do with it, but it isn’t impossible that Poland decided to review how the industry was doing business in their country, after seeing the fervent debate around Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision.
And many of the things gamers had gotten used to, such as Sony’s acquisition of third party exclusives, or Steam’s domination of the PC market, may be seen by Poland as signs of unhealthy competition. Polish game companies include CD Projekt RED, People Can Fly, and Bloober Team. Poland-based GOG competes directly with Steam, and Bloober Team is making one such console exclusive for Sony, in the Silent Hill 2 remake. So this is hardly a frivolous case, with the country hosting real major players in the industry. This is not a case to be taken lightly, but if Sony and Valve are lucky, it won’t go beyond this.
