You’re all in the wrong business: You should have become lawyers working for Valve. The company has been the target of more than one lawsuit or potential lawsuit this year, and now, its legal matter in Australia is coming to a head.
Kotaku’s Aussie branch reports that The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has tied up Valve in courts down under for three years now, culminating in a loss for the US-based company; the Aussie courts found earlier this year that Valve had insufficiently advertised and provided refunds to Australian customers such that it violated consumer law in the country. While the courts didn’t find that Valve intended to deceive or mislead consumers, the ACCC has nevertheless demanded a $3M US fine. Valve has suggested $250K would be more appropriate — and the final number is what the judge is deciding this winter.
It’s not clear at all that Valve can be forced to pay fines imposed by the Australian jurisdiction, though Valve’s attorneys have said they are not under orders to balk at the court’s decision.
All that said, the number in Kotaku’s piece that stood out to me above all the others was 50 — the number of support personnel Valve told the court it employs. As one commenter pointed out, that comes down to one support person per 2,500,000 users, which if nothing else explains a whole lot about the state of Steam.
