Emails from the discovery phase of an ongoing antitrust lawsuit reveal that Valve threatened to remove all editions of Rainbow Six Siege from Steam after learning that Ubisoft was marketing a cheaper bundle exclusively on its own Uplay storefront. According to a Bloomberg report on the correspondence, Valve gave Ubisoft until “end of day tomorrow” to correct the pricing gap.
The claim is one of several emerging from the lawsuit that portrays Valve as an aggressive enforcer of pricing rules that benefit Steam at the expense of competitor storefronts. A recent study cited in the case found 72% of participating game developers view Steam as a monopoly in PC game sales, a characterization Gabe Newell has publicly disputed, saying gamers have “enormous choice” in where they buy games. The Bloomberg report focuses on two incidents uncovered in the discovery phase of that class action.
The Rainbow Six Siege pricing ultimatum
According to Bloomberg’s account, Valve’s objection was that Ubisoft had been promoting a Rainbow Six Siege bundle through Uplay at a lower price while the same or comparable bundle remained at full price on Steam. The alleged emails indicate Valve treated this as a breach of expected price parity between its platform and competing storefronts. The threatened consequence was a complete delisting of Rainbow Six Siege from Steam.
The Bloomberg report does not detail how the situation was ultimately resolved or whether Ubisoft adjusted its Uplay bundle pricing in response to Valve’s demand. It is also not clear whether the threatened delisting was ever enacted.
Warner Bros. Games faced a related enforcement action
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, now Warner Bros. Games, ran into a comparable enforcement situation. In 2017, Kassidy Gerber, a member of Steam’s business development team, wrote to Warner Bros. executives informing them that Steam had removed pre-orders for Middle-earth: Shadow of War. The stated reason was that the game’s price on Steam was “significantly higher than what was available at other retailers for the same version of the game.” Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment President David Haddad reportedly called Gerber almost immediately to resolve the matter.
Valve denies a formal pricing policy
In her deposition, Gerber denied that Valve enforces any specific rule about cross-platform pricing, saying: “In general, I don’t feel like we have a lot of policies. That sounds kind of bureaucratic to me.” A lawyer for the plaintiffs countered by claiming Gerber had once told a developer directly: “Steam’s policy has always been to require material parity for things we sell on the Steam Store.” Gerber said she could not recall making that statement.
The plaintiffs point to both incidents as evidence of a deliberately enforced parity requirement that Valve has declined to acknowledge publicly. Valve has not yet responded to GamesRadar’s request for comment.