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Court rules Gabe Newell must appear in person to testify in Steam anti-trust lawsuit
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this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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I don't know whether valve has violated anti-trust law or not, and I certainly don't think gaben deserves any more protection from covid than the general public but;
this is a stupid ruling. Why on earth can't he appear remotely, as he requested? They can't "adequately assess his credibility"? Are they gonna have an FBI body language expert on hand? Check his forehead for sweat droplets? There's nothing they can ask him in person that they can't ask him over a camera.
Feels like the plaintiffs are doing some kind of lowkey spite thing here, and I'm surprised the judge played along.
Most courtroom bullshit like this boil down to people who probably shouldn't be in power powertripping.
I think gaben deserves the world’s sickest powered respirator with RGB lights and holographic Team Fortress 2 unusual hat visual effects.
Glad to hear the court will require N95s at least.
It's a fucking stupid lawsuit in the first place. I can think of at least 5 different pc game storefronts anybody can use
Can you provide a real-world example of what constitutes a monopoly in your eyes?
Locked down App Store on iOS (EU is trustbusting this one)
Locked down PlayStation ecosystem
Locked down Xbox ecosystem
Locked down Switch ecosystem
Regional monopolies by ISPs
So they are still not absolute in that the users still get to buy a PC or an Android phone or get satellite connectivity via a global ISP, which boils the issue down to inconvenience/cost/hardship, not the absence of alternatives.
They are all monopolies in their ecosystem.
(Satellite Internet doesn't reach everywhere.)
You got a list of monopolies, stop trying to move goalposts in order to slam Valve and defend a bunch of anti-consumer publicly traded companies.
Standard Oil was a monopoly, but using your logic there wasn't because there was an alternative of not using oil-based fuels.
An example of a company that actually fits your definition of a pseudo-monopoly would be Nvidia in the GPU market.
It's the logic of the comment I responded to. The existence of this upcoming trial alone is proof that the mere presence of alternatives is not enough to claim there's no monopoly in the relevant market.
The (my) comment that you responded to presented you a list of actual monopolies that have no alternatives on their platform. There was no "logic" presented, it was a statement of observation.
The existence of the lawsuit does not mean there is proof, it means that Wolfire has enough of a case to begin discovery on two of their claims that the court is interested to find out more. That's it.
One of the claims is also very weird and I can't actually find any information corroborating the claim besides the claim itself (re: Valve acquiring and shutting down World Opponent Network). The only thing I see is that Sierra was acquired by Havas who made WON into it's own entity, then merged it with PrizeCentral under the name Flipside.com and the last WON game was released in 2006.
The only thing relating to Valve I can see is that Valve announced Steam in 2002 and then they removed WON from their own games, which they had every right to do so.
WG's strongest claim is the MFN clause, and they actually have to prove that it's for anticompetitiveness.
They did meet him in the middle, though. Everyone in court has to wear a mask when he's there, and he only has to take it off when he's speaking.
This is not how the masks work though. If I were honestly concerned about my health I'd take this as an insult.
Having everyone in court wear masks absolutely does help protect him. However, what would protect everyone better is proper ventilation systems - but that would cost businesses money, rather than passing the cost and responsibility onto individuals.
You're going to need a lot more than just I'm afraid of covid to get out of being in person for a trial. People with actual fears of being killed for testimony, still appear in person. At this point with vaccines making any serious complications nearly impossible for covid, it's a really desperate attempt to avoid attending.
I was a juror last year for a civil case, half the witnesses were cross examined over zoom before the days of the trial and played back for us. The judge made it explicitly clear that we were to take remote testimony the same as any others done in person
This isn't a criminal trial with Gabe Newell as the defendant, it's a civil trial against the company Valve.
True, but Gabe is CEO and owner of Valve.
How should that change the legal process/expectations?
I own a '92 Ford ranger, what legal structure changes for me considering I own that?
Because you would expect the people in charge of the company to answer questions regarding the actions of the company.
If you were driving your truck and crashed into a traffic light, and it was caught on camera, you would be expected to answer questions about that. Even if you weren't driving, as the registered owner you're still going to be asked about it, or at the very least to identify who was driving.
Gabe isn't just a tertiary witness, he has direct responsibility. Not that I think he's done anything wrong here, I'm just saying it makes sense to have him answer questions live in court, rather than give a pre-recorded interview. Doing it live but remote invites other issues, such as poor connection quality, which would rather be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
Another thing with the trial I was a jury member on was the plaintiff themselves were not always present, most days it was just their lawyer and paralegal. The judge reminded us each day that we can't hold their physical presence or lack thereof for or against them.
I'm no lawyer, but if neither the plaintiff nor the witnesses needed to be physically present I don't see how they can justify forcing Gabe Newell to be. Despite being CEO he's still not the defendant.
I mean he is pretty close to being the defendant, up to the limited liability of the company he owns and operates.
It's also a fact that different courts, and even different judges, may treat things differently. I have no idea how Seattle handles things, but I reckon this is in line with other cases they've heard.