Ubisoft Lowers Rainbow Six Siege Price; Valve Threatens Steam Pull

Recently unveiled documents during the ongoing antitrust lawsuit against Valve have exposed the aggressive corporate pressures exerted by the company on major publishers to manipulate PC gaming market prices. According to a series of internal emails, the platform threatened to remove successful games from studios such as Ubisoft and Warner Bros if they were found offering more affordable versions on other digital distributors.

One of the most notable incidents in these reports involves the successful tactical game Rainbow Six Siege by French company Ubisoft. According to Bloomberg’s court records, Valve threatened to remove all editions of this title from its platform, demanding an immediate solution, accompanied by the literal warning of executing the removal “by tomorrow morning.”

This aggressive ultimatum was issued immediately after Steam’s management discovered that an initial $15 package was being sold exclusively through Uplay, Ubisoft’s own store. The lawsuit documents suggest that the European publisher received this extremely short deadline to match prices or risk being completely excluded from Steam, the largest PC video game store.

Dramatic shifts in competitive control have not spared Warner Bros, as evidenced during the launch of its critically acclaimed Lord of the Rings-based title, “Middle-earth: Shadow of War,” in 2017. A Steam representative abruptly withdrew pre-orders for the game due to its significantly higher value on Valve’s platform compared to rival stores, prompting an immediate call from a Warner Bros director to resolve the issue.

Despite Valve’s denial of these allegations in the Ubisoft case, the plaintiff’s lawyers presented testimony where this same executive demanded that all games sold on Steam maintain exact prices as on other rival stores. This ongoing legal conflict underscores the significant divide in opinions within the PC gaming industry today, with Valve maintaining that players have complete freedom to purchase wherever they wish, while developers accuse the store of functioning as an absolute monopoly.