Valve fires back at EU: We ‘turned off’ European region locks in 2015

Valve found itself in the crosshairs of European regulators today. The European Commission sent a notice to the owner and operator of the Steam game-distribution platform as well as five other game publishers. As part of an ongoing investigation, the EC noted the six companies made an agreement to lock certain game activation keys to specific countries within the European Economic Area. This violates one of the core policies of the EU, which is to maintain a single European market.

The region-locked keys enabled developers to sell codes on third-party stores or at physical retailers throughout Europe. But while the keys would work in one country, they may not have activated for someone in a neighboring nation.