Video Games and Competition Law

This chapter offers a broad analysis of the past, present, and potential future application of EU and UK competition law to video games companies. It covers enforcement of the law on anticompetitive agreements, merger control, and abuse of dominance, plus complementary regimes regulating the digital economy. Beyond providing an accessible overview for those without prior knowledge of competition law, the chapter also highlights peculiarities of investigations into the gaming sector vis-à-vis other areas of enforcement. Furthermore, the chapter identifies several practices by video games companies which have not yet been subject to scrutiny, but could be. It also explores the implications for gaming of the EU Digital Markets Act and UK Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act. While cloud streaming services and mobile gaming are significant beneficiaries of these new regulatory regimes, comparable obligations on digital games stores would require significant changes by the console giants.