Cleaning up the mess, defining the new goal (and file a new complaint)

When this whole campaign was started and named 1€ ≠ 1$ (one euro is not one dollar), we all hoped that by this it would eventually be corrected.

This is not the case. At start we complained to the EU commission about the price difference. Whether it be the price difference in the US vs EU or UK vs EU Steam case.

In the end, sadly, 1 euro is 1 dollar if Valve decides it is. The recent response from the European Commission explained this very clearly (and it was maybe too complicated for some people to understand, thus this post).

We have nothing against Valve any more, or do we? Well not in the currency case anyway, they can charge us whatever they want, and Europe allows it.

However there is one thing I do want to mention in this quick news announcement after the European Commission response announcement. One of our dear Steam Forums users Jani666 made this apparent (right here).

I’ll just get down to the point:
Part of the 97/7/EC directive: “whereas it means that consumers should be able to have access to the goods and services of another Member State on the same terms as the population of that State;”

(A directive is a legislative act, which is a statutory law, which is a written law, yeah they go far to cover it up in complicated words. In theory it’s only binding to member states who they are addressed to, in practice all directives except for the Common Agricultural Policy are addressed to all member states)

Or in other words, the UK is a member of the EU. UK citizens can access the UK store, which means that any other EU citizen has that same right under the same terms.

Even if Valve will officially respond to this (or even correct the prices towards US pricing), they will have to open up the UK shop to Europe or face the legal consequences.

What can you do? Go back in time and file a new complaint but however this time, mention the above directive piece and tell as an EU citizen you are being blocked from an United Kingdom online store.

Link to the complain form:
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/forms/consumer_form.html

Example:
https://steamunpowered.eu/example.html (thanks to Stranded for this great example page)

This will probably will be one of the last real announcements for a while. If enough people file a complaint we’ll hopefully get a response within a month or so again. So head out once more and tell this to everyone you know that is interested in this.