BeepAmazon BUSTED for Widespread Scheme to Inflate Prices Across the Economy— Amazon, its vendors, and competing retailers are price fixing, hiking up prices for consumer products, making Amazon richer
UlrichAmazon has reached out to its vendors and instructed them to increase retail prices on competitors’ websites
This is and has been part of Amazon’s contract to be listed on their site since the beginning. They are not even remotely the only one doing this. It’s an industry norm in digital storefronts. Valve has also been sued for this several times. I don’t know why we’re acting like this is a recent discovery.
We need to just ban this practice, because as long as they’re allowed to, they will.
AliasAKAValve states you can’t sell a steam key in another platform for cheaper than in steam, not that you can’t sell your game anywhere else at a lower price. That’s slightly different than here. Not defending it just saying that it is actually different than here.
PikaThis is good to know. Can you provide a link to that court case or anything?
I have the docket link which is here but its a mess because the original case was dismissed back in 2021, but then amended and merged to contain a larger case.
I used to have the actual document number somewhere if i can find it I will let you know as well. Sadly when the case started getting media attention valve started filing for seal motions on newer evidence, but I don’t /think/ they retroactively sealed anything.
The case is well worth a read, the intent on it is of course valves potential monopoly on video game storefront but it goes into detail about other providers as well. It aims to focus on the valve 30% cut system they use and whether valve uses their market position to abuse or not. I don’t personally think they do, because I feel their choices are fair in a business mentality, but it’s cool reading about others POV’s on it.