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ASUS has been named as one of three hardware companies currently under investigation by the European Commission for potential anti-competitive practices. It is looking into whether ASUS, Denon and Marantz and Philips and Pioneer, restricted the pricing options of online retailers, forcing the cost of consumer electronics and other items, to remain artificially high.
One of the hallmarks of online shopping is that it's easier to find competitive prices there. If you don't like what's offered by one retailer, often going to another will net you some savings. That competition is what drives better services to consumers and better pricing, but the EU Commission believes that ASUS and others may have looked to get around that, by forcing retailers to stick to specific pricing guidelines which it set out.
The Commission is specifically looking into instances where geo-blocking and cross-border sales were deliberately manipulated, to prevent manufacturers from other countries from competing in ASUS' key markets. This, the investigating commission believes, made online shopping more difficult for consumers, and stopped them from benefiting from the improved prices that competition often brings.
Valve's Steam store is being investigated over geo-blocking and pricing concerns.
It's not just electronics manufacturers who are under investigation as part of the overarching report though. Valve, Zenimax, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home and Koch Media, are all said to be under investigation for their part in blocking sales of games in certain EU regions, or inhibiting competition by offering different prices in different regions.
Using game-keys to geo-block gamers from activating them in certain countries, could be in breach of EU competition rules. It will be interesting to see if the Commission decides to look at Nvidia too, which recently announced geoblocking for its bundle keys.
The Commission will also be looking into several European travel and tour operators, suggesting that they may be offering better prices to people from certain territories, which again, could be in breach of anti-competition law.
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KitGuru Says: It's not clear how long this investigation will take, but its conclusion could have wide reaching implications for how games and hardware are priced in the EU.
God, I can’t wait to leave the EU. What a ridiculous and overreaching institution meddling the affairs of sovereign states.
What kind of Union goes around making sure prices are cheaper for consumers and not allowing big businesses to screw over their customers?
…Ridiculous.
Honestly I’m actually furious about this, no joke. Game developers have to make money somehow. If they sold it for the same price in a country that makes 200 Euros a month (AKA Lithuania) as they do in a country where a consumer makes 1000 Euros a month minimum (AKA Germany), then everyone will either a) have to severely shrink game development studios, putting a lot of people out of work and drop the quality of the whole industry or b) sell at prices that for some countries would be more than 1/10th of their monthly wage making people not be able to afford video games at all (much more likely to happen).
So yes. When it is shit like this, I think that Valve should make a conscious decision to stop trading with EU entirely.
Valve will do no such thing. The EU is one of the biggest markets on the planet. So, it’d be suicide to stop trading here.
There cannot be one rule for one and another rule for others. The single market does not allow you to sell a product in one country for a certain price, and sell for more in another via geoblocking. Not really sure what your issue is with that. Why should German consumers pay more than Lithuanian consumers, for the same product, just because they have more money?
It’s ridiculous.
The games industry isn’t going to collapse because it’s forced to stop ripping people off with geoblocking.
The biggest markets? Don’t kid yourself.
As to why? Because you earn more. Currently, out of courtesy, they sell to lesser countries AT A LOSS. Because the alternative is to not sell to them at all.
Doing this lawsuit is also a great way to destabilize EU. Worse off economically countries already got a huge problem of being able to pay their citizens maybe 5% of what wealthier countries can pay, with imported item prices staying pretty much the same (food in Lithuania costs the same as Germany) forcing their whole population to migrate (over half of my country. 2 out of 4 million are currently in UK, taking out UK passports before it is too late. Why? Because the alternative is to live in a country where 2/3 of the population live below the poverty line.). This would speed up the process, meaning that the best course of action for Greece and Eastern Europe is to leave with the speed that you would leave a burning ship and completely close their boarders, or else they will stop existing completely.
Because the prices won’t go down. This lawsuit will just be settled at an expense of a EU entire sell ban, or by charging the lesser countries 1/8th of their wages for a single video game and 2X monthly wage for a single GPU. That’s the extend of an earnings gap between a wealthy EU country and a poor one.
There’s 500,000,000 people in the EU. It’s one of the biggest markets on the planet.
There is nothing stopping a consumer from Germany travelling to Poland to buy cheaper food. There’s no geoblock on the food., The food doesn’t go off when they reach the German border. There’s no-one taking the food off you as “unauthorised food” or anything.
Whatever you’re talking about is an aside, this is on about geolocking games, not food or anything else.
Stopping the geolocking of games isn’t going to ruin the EU and bring down the economy.
The section about stopping retailers artificially keeping prices high won’t either.
Good luck to the Lithuanians in the UK trying to get passports, btw. The current sideshow of a government is going to do their best to stop that. It’s entirely shameful.
“Stopping the geolocking of games isn’t going to ruin the EU and bring down the economy.” Origin doesn’t Geolock and I don’t know about you, but I get my keys from Mexico for 10 times less the price. It’s not entirely fair and only barely more legal than pirating. Ending Geolock on ALL products will just raise their overall price higher to poor countries, which in turn will stop them from buying things all together.
As for the passport thingy, all you need to do to get permanent right to stay is have lived in the country for 5 years. As this isn’t a sudden issue with Lithuania emptying out, most people have already lived passed that limit.
Trust me, this sham of a government is doing anything they can to stop that. There’s been people who have lived here, married and had kids being told to leave (which is eventually cancelled due to being absolutely ridiculous). If, literally, 2 million people clamber to get a UK passport that won’t happen.
Bad move by the EU not recognising the vast difference in prices in certain areas – This won’t lower prices in the expensive countries. It will raise it and encourage piracy in the cheap ones.
The EU is a great tool, but it is sometimes wielded by people with little understanding of market economy and real life.
“Why are these people trying to protect my rights as a customer” Well….
OMG this shit is pretty sad Don’t care what you think. It is called business 101 they want to make money and they own the frickin products and as such they set the price and they let the retailer know what to sell it at and also how low of a price they can go. Besides that if a retailer was to sell it at below the cost they bought it at then they failed the business 101 coarse. As for games being sold at different prices in different regions is the currency the same across the regions these games are being sold if not then frack yea the price will change frackin stupid shit like this makes the rest of us look like sad sacks of crap. The EU that like to fine the big companies like MS,Google etc etc thought hey we bled them enough for now lets go after someone else. If you actually think they are working for your best interest then ask them where that money goes they like to fine so much. You won’t get an honest answer.