The legislative body of the European Union is launching an antitrust investigation into regional pricing and geo-blocking practices on Valve's Steam store. In a statement, the European Commission says it's investigating "bilateral agreements" between Valve and five publishers: Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax.
The investigation is primarily focused on activation keys, whose primary function is as an anti-piracy tool. After buying a physical copy of a game, users need to submit an activation key to prove they own it and add it to their Steam library. Once done, the game is then available on any device that the user is logged into.
Source: European Commission
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