Valve has allegedly gone to great lengths to maintain Steam's position as a marketplace titan on PC, including one example that reportedly saw it threaten to retaliate against Ubisoft by delisting Rainbow Six Siege.
Information related to the goings-on at the gaming tech company comes from an extensive Bloomberg report (paywall). The site stated that, as indicated by emails uncovered as part of an antitrust lawsuit against the Half-Life developer, there has been more than one occasion where Valve used aggressive tactics against publishers looking to bolster their own digital storefronts.
Perhaps the most significant example presented in the report involves Assassin's Creed publisher Ubisoft and its tactical first-person shooter, Rainbow Six Siege. Undated emails related to the incident paint a picture that reportedly saw Valve employees threaten to delist the popular video game from Steam in response to a cheaper $15 starter pack option offered by Ubisoft on its UPlay store. Valve allegedly told the publisher it would remove Rainbow Six Siege from Steam "by end of day tomorrow" if the situation was not rectified.
Bloomberg reported that Warner Bros. Interactive once found itself entangled with Valve, too. Steam business team member Kassidy Gerber allegedly wrote to the game publishing arm regarding Middle-earth: Shadow of War in 2017.
The interaction saw her telling executives at the company that pre-orders for the project had been deleted from Steam because the price was "significantly higher than what was available at other retailers for the same version of the game." Warner Bros. Interactive's then-president, David Haddad, allegedly hopped on the phone only a few hours later to work on a fix.
Additional details from the lawsuit allege Gerber denied that Steam has a policy regarding pricing parity. "I don’t really know what you mean by 'policy,'" she said during the lawsuit. "In general, I don’t feel like we have a lot of policies. That sounds kind of bureaucratic to me." When plaintiffs presented Gerber with one of her own statements saying otherwise, she replied that she didn't remember saying that.
Valve has found itself in the hot seat for more reasons than one in 2026. In January, the company was faced with a $900 million lawsuit over monopoly claims. New York Attorney General Letitia James announced she would be suing the gaming company for its use of loot boxes in February. Valve responded to that lawsuit in March and again in May.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
