Two gamers are suing Microsoft over Valve's alleged anticompetitive practices. Stay with me here. Max Rockman and Randall Moring filed the proposed class action in Washington court on Sunday, alleging that Microsoft takes kickback deals from Valve "as remuneration for agreeing not to compete with Steam."
"Without the cooperation of some of the biggest PC game companies in the world, Steam could not have achieved and maintained the dominance it has enjoyed for at least a decade now," they wrote. "Microsoft is one of those companies."
Rockman and Moring claim in the complaint, obtained by Aftermath, that Microsoft and Valve have agreements over release dates and prices—and that those agreements stifle competition and put a major burden on "ordinary gamers," "who have paid higher prices than they would have in a competitive market, and have suffered from reduced game quality and choice as well."
The plaintiffs lawyers include the Bucher Law firm, which is one of firms that attempted mass arbitration against Valve in 2023 and 2024. Valve sued the law firm for tortious interference and "extortion." The case got dismissed in September 2025. Valve has since removed the arbitration clause from its user agreements.
The two gamers say Microsoft and Valve have admitted to this sort of behavior. They cite an ongoing lawsuit, Valve Corporation v. Thomas Abbruzzese et al., in which Valve is attempting to vacate an arbitration award. In one document filed by Valve itself in that case, the company references a 2011 arbitration hearing in which the arbitrator declared that a clause in a distribution agreement between Valve and Microsoft constituted "unlawful 'horizontal-pricing.'" Valve disagreed with the ruling, and outlined why in the document filed in the Abbruzzese case in May—specifically, that the arbitrator didn't follow the rule of law and that the Microsoft agreement with Valve only impacts Microsoft's pricing of its own games.
The gamers also cited a court document from the ongoing Wolfire v. Valve Corporation case, in which two video game development studios sued Valve over its 30% cut of revenue from sales made on the platform. The document is written by economist Steven Schwartz, who wrote the report supporting the two studios. Rockman and Moring reference an email by TKTK that Schwartz cites in that report, which was filed in August 2024.
"“[T]he Steam publishing agreement historically has required product and price parity," the referenced email reads. "When I looked at it pre Age:DE [presumably Age of Empires: Definitive Edition] a few years ago, I found that we could sell at any price we wanted before Steam release, but once we released on Steam we needed to give Steam price parity to our other digital channels. In the case of a [Gears of War 5] Steam/Windows Store (Garrison) simship, I’d assume Steam demands you don’t undercut them once you release on Steam.”
There's another email in the expert report in which one Microsoft employee is discussing Valve with another. "One employee asks whether Steam requires price parity, and in response, another Microsoft employee replied ‘Yes - they absolutely do… Its [sic] not formally listed in documentation in Steamworks, but always addressed in person.’"
The complaint doesn't provide evidence for the kickback accusations.
In the lawsuit filed Sunday, Rockman and Moring interpret the email as saying "if Microsoft lowers the price of one of its own games for distribution on its own platform, it must also lower the price it offers that product for sale on Steam's platform."
They argue that these agreements are illegal under the Sherman Act, and also say that "collusion between competitors is 'the supreme evil of antitrust,'" citing another lawsuit involving Verizon and a law office. Microsoft and Valve also "conceal their agreements from the public," according to the lawsuit.
"In effect, Microsoft and Valve are partners in a cartel over the market for PC game distribution," they wrote. "By choosing to collude rather than compete, Microsoft deprived consumers of the benefits of competition: lower prices, increased output, unique content selection, and higher quality. Consumers like the Plaintiffs were overcharged on their PC game purchases as a result of these anticompetitive practices."
Rockman and Moring are asking the court to award the lawsuit class action status, which means that other people impacted by the alleged anticompetitive actions would be able to join the suit. They're accusing Valve of violating the Sherman Act, which is an antitrust law, and for violating the Washington Consumer Protection Act.
