Video game distribution giant Valve Corp. have lodged an appeal in the Federal Court against the ruling made by Justice Edelman late last year, which would have seen them fined for $3 million.
An Australian court ruled on the 23rd of December that the terms and conditions in the Steam subscriber agreements, and Steam’s refund policies, included false or misleading representations about consumers’ rights to obtain a refund for games if they were not of acceptable quality.
Both the ACCC and Valve’s lawyers confirmed to ChannelNews earlier this morning that an appeal against the ruling has been lodged by Valve.
At the time, Justice Edelman said that “even if a very small percentage of Valve’s consumers had read the misrepresentations then this might have involved hundreds, possibly thousands, of consumers being affected”.
Edelman asserted that Valve had formed a view “that it was not subject to Australian law”, calling the company’s approach to the case “disturbing”.
Observing that Valve had “contested liability on almost every imaginable point”, Edelman noted that “even if advice had been obtained that Valve was required to comply with the Australian law the advice might have been ignored.”
Steam is the biggest digital distributor for video games worldwide with over 125 million active users, bringing in $3.5 billion in revenue in 2015.
An ACCC spokesperson speaking to ChannelNews says that “the ACCC is closely examining the judgement before it can comment further.”
