Gabe Newell has been ordered to attend an in-person deposition relating to Overgrowth developer Wolfire Games’ antitrust lawsuit against Valve despite his request to do it remotely.
As reported by GI.biz, the Valve CEO had requested the remote deposition due to concerns regarding COVID-19, but the court said he presented “insubstantial evidence to suggest that he is at particularised risk of serious illness”.
The order, which was filed on November 16 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, included a statement from Wolfire Games which said Newell “is uniquely positioned to testify on all aspects of [Valve’s] business strategy” and an in-person deposition “would allow [it] to adequately assess Newell’s credibility”.
It does offer some precautions to alleviate Newell’s COVID-19 concerns, however, including that all courtroom participants must wear masks during the deposition. Newell must remove his mask when answering questions though.
Wolfire Games CEO David Rosen is leading a class-action lawsuit representing game developers against Valve, which asserts that the near dominance of Steam on the PC games market increases the prices of games due to Valve’s service taking a 30% commission from the sale of each game.
Rosen said that his motivation for the lawsuit is that “gamers and game developers are being harmed by Valve’s conduct”.
Image Credit: Olly Curtis/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
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