In 2023, Valve’s head Gabe Newell provided testimony in a legal case against Wolfire Games, which accused the company of monopolizing the PC store market. A transcript of his speech was recently obtained by Bloomberg.
As reported by Bloomberg, during the trial, Newell stated that Steam surpassed competitors through store development and constant innovation. He emphasized that gamers are not restricted and if they choose, they can make purchases in other stores or even directly from developers.
Newell also denied the existence of an unwritten rule supposedly prohibiting developers from selling their games at a lower price than on Steam.
“Valve does not have a policy or practice of dictating prices to third-party software developers on other platforms,” stated Newell.
Notably, when the Valve head was shown correspondence between some developers and the Steam team which confirmed the existence of this rule, Newell still disagreed with the accusation. When asked how Valve would react to a studio’s decision to lower their game prices in another store, he said he did not understand the question. Later, Newell added that many developers and gamers are satisfied with Steam’s services.
Separately, Bloomberg’s piece described the current state of affairs at Valve. The agency found that Newell rarely intervenes in business processes, preferring to play Dota 2 or relax on his yacht, while the company practices a very liberal corporate culture. Nevertheless, it is claimed that Newell, along with several other executives, once vetoed a proposal to reduce the commission fee for games earning under $1 million — top managers were concerned that this could negatively affect Steam’s revenue in the long term.