[UPDATE - March 10, 2026] Another lawsuit filed in the United Kingdom is about to hit Valve. This time, it's from the Performing Rights Society (PRS), which alleges Valve should obtain a separate license to cover music works from PRS artists that are included in games sold on Steam.
[ORIGINAL STORY] Last month, a UK judge ruled that Valve would have to face its day in court over a £656 million class-action lawsuit being led by Parent Zone chief executive officer, Vicki Shotbolt, over the 30% cut that the company takes from all transactions on Steam.
It's not a dissimilar case to what Epic Games brought against Apple, as Shotbolt has called Valve's 30% cut "excessive" and that the company "is rigging the market and taking advantage of UK gamers." In a new report from GamesIndustry.Biz, Shotbolt further explained her case against Valve and Steam, adding that Valve is "clearly not" cooperating fairly in the video games market.
"It's about how you use digital in positive ways, and how you unlock, enjoy, and embrace opportunity," said Shotbolt. "Games are such a vital part of that ecosystem. It's an important industry. It's important for young people who enjoy it and play in it. It's important for the adults who have spent an enormous amount of time socialising, playing games, and so on."
"Games is a really important sector, and therefore it needs to operate fairly and not overcharge, fundamentally. Steam is a big and important platform for a big and important ecosystem – it needs to cooperate fairly, and it's clearly not."
While Shotbolt hopes that a win will provide a more balanced industry for developers and players across the world, she also admits that elements like developers lowering their prices because Steam is no longer taking as big of a cut is not guaranteed. "That is out of my control," Shotbolt adds. "You can put a stake in the ground and say developers should not be being charged that 30% - that it is too high and not a reasonable amount of money. What you'd hope would happen is that some developers will bring their prices down, and they'll pass that on to the consumer. I believe it will happen, because that's how markets look. But it can only happen if that price parity obligation also goes away."
"Of course, it's possible that developers would get together and make greater profits from their games. But one would hope a market would respond by saying it's in my interest to cut my price now and pass that on to the customer."
We can hope that prices will go down, but Shotbolt has to win her case first. And decreasing prices aren't the only outcome Shotbolt hopes for if she wins. The ultimate goal, it would seem, is to see Valve not dominate the market and to see developers have more than one viable option for where to sell their games.
"If you want to develop a PC game, you want it on Steam. It's not like developers have ten options," Shotbolt said. "That's what makes the case, I think, so important, because Steam has had market dominance for a long, long time, and it shouldn't be exploiting that."
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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