Are consumer laws to blame for Steam Deck not being sold in Australia, Norway?

Two years ago Valve said the company was hoping to bring the Steam Deck to Australia and Japan soon.

This was prior to the general release of the handheld PC. In February 25, 2022 the Steam Deck was released in the US and some parts of the European Union. A few months later, in December 2022, Valve started shipping Steam Deck's to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

It's now September 2024 and the Steam Deck is still not available officially in Australia. Interestingly, the company excludes Norway in its European availability.

There are countless threads and articles online asking why the Steam Deck isn't available in Australia. And it feels like there's a pretty clear reason, something that Australia and Norway have in common. Strong consumer laws.

We reached out to Valve at the time of publication and will update this story if it responds.

In 2014 the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) took action against Valve over its refund policy, which violated Australian law. At the time Valve didn't offer refunds for games under any circumstances, even when a game was faulty, had false advertising, or didn't work on a users computer. The company was fined AU$3 million in 2016 because of the illegal policy.

In 2018 Norway's consumer rights body, the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC), came to a similar conclusion:

Specifically, these companies are in Norway's bad books due to being in "breach of the right of withdrawal". Translating from legalese to English, this refers to a consumer's ability to back out of a purchase, i.e. refund a game after buying, or cancel a pre-order.

The NCC finds that user agreements on Steam, Origin and PlayStation Store refer to consumers losing their right of withdrawal once a game is downloaded, but the body reckons there is no explicit consent here. Steam apparently does not mention right of withdrawal anywhere when making a purchase.

Nowadays, thanks to consumer protections in Australia and Norway, the company has a generous self-service refund policy worldwide. A user can request a refund "within 14 days of purchase and has been played for less than 2 hours".

Valve would likely not have implemented such a policy without consumer law. And it seems like it's partially to blame for the lack of Steam Deck availability in either Australia or Norway.

In 2018 an internal study at Valve found that the company makes more money per employee than Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft - "over $780,000 per head a year". The company takes a 30% cut from all transactions on its platform. As of 2021 the company had just 336 staffers.

This data came from an antitrust case against the company by Wolfire Games. Via The Verge, in its lawsuit the indie developer argued that:

“Valve abuses its market power to ensure game publishers have no choice but to sell most of their games through the Steam Store, where they are subject to Valve’s 30% toll”

Wolfire claims that Valve now controls “approximately 75 percent” of the entire PC gaming market, reaping an estimated $6 billion in annual revenue as a result from that 30 percent fee alone — over $15 million per year per Valve employee, assuming the company still has somewhere in the vicinity of the 360 employees it confirmed having five years ago.

Also from The Verge are the arguments from Wolfire Games, which they summarise as:

Every other company’s attempt to compete with Steam has failed to make a dent, even though many of them offered developers a bigger cut of the profits, such as the Epic Game Store’s 88-percent revenue share

Steam doesn’t allow publishers to sell PC games and game keys for less money elsewhere

That in turn means rival game platforms can’t compete on price, which keeps them from getting a foothold

Most of those rival game stores have largely given up, like how EA and Microsoft have each brought their games back to Steam

That ensures Steam stays the dominant platform, because companies that could have become competitors are reduced to simply feeding the Steam engine with their games or selling Steam keys

As well:

Valve once worked with Humble Bundle on a keyless direct integration, the lawsuit claims that Valve abruptly pulled the plug on that partnership with no explanation.

Valve has a very strong and positive perception from PC gamers. The company contributes a lot back to the platform, in the form of its Linux compatibility layer Proton (based on Wine), flexible controller support and a number of features that competitors like the Epic Games Store have struggled to implement, like even a wishlist function that took Epic Games years to implement. The Steam Deck has also been a huge hit, with its console-like design and OS mixed with a PC-like open platform that users can make changes to.

Yet Steam still attaches DRM to games. It takes a 30% from the first $10 million in sales from every developer, which benefits bigger publishers. It also still allows publishers to ship launchers and additional DRM with games, including DRM that limits titles to online-only play and other account requirements. The company is still a company too, despite its online fanbase. And it still has acted in a legally anti-consumer way and arguably anti-competitively in the past, hiring fewer employees than many other companies with similar revenue.

The Steam Deck works in Australia. I own one and you really wouldn't know that it's not technically supported in the country when using it. It's available online via the unofficial "grey market" from huge retailers like Kogan and Big W, imported with a huge premium attached. While Valve is celebrating its birthday with a AU$441.31 pricetag on the 64GB LCD Steam Deck, Kogan is selling the model for double the price at AU$885.

I guess the question is: will Valve ever actually bring the Steam Deck to Australia? Or is Valve too worried it will have to actually support the product and help customers that receive faulty devices.