Official source here.

These are some considerable fines. I wonder, though, of all publishers why Focus got the worst fine of all.

On the other hand, of course Valve won't cooperate and wants to appeal.

17.800.000 € profit by goeblocking
- 7.800.000 € from stupid consumer laws
---------------
10.000.000 € win that would not be without blocking.

Numbers are made up of course but I guess you get the gist of it. Only thing hurt might be the ego from the gentle slap on the wrist.

Agree, its more like a slap on the wrist as you say. Instead of outright condemning this practice it almost sounds like someone wants a piece of the pie. Instead of looking out for the interests of the consumer.

I was talking to my 15 year old nephew the other day, and he mentioned he was buying games considerably cheaper by using VPN and alternate Steam Accounts. So whom are we 'kidding' - no pun intended.

This is the sort of policy that its just disgraceful and disgusting.

Before you all raise your pitchforks or hoorays, please note that they (Valve and publishers) are being fined for selling geoblocked keys outside of Steam itself, by third party distributors, which required a cooperation between Steam and publishers, hence antitrust part.

Well, they state "Focus Home" in the article so I guess it's the publisher part only? Who knows. No pitchforks here :) I just posted it because I like reading other peoples' opinions on such matters. Hooray-ing was definitely not an intention, as others previously posted this is merely a wrist-slap for a slice of the pie and nothing more.

From a regular person's standpoint, sure. From a company's standpoint, not that much.

Very good link. Thank you.

Here, some statements from Valve after the decision of the European Commission was published.

Well, can someone explain me, how not selling games brings more profit than selling them?

So, can we expect GOG to come to their senses and stop with the unfair regional prices, albeit within EU?

Not to defend Steam, but I don't understand why Steam is being fined here. If that article is correct, this is the key sentence:
"The publishers requested Valve to set up geographical restrictions and to provide geo-blocked Steam activation keys."

If that's how it happened, then Valve and Steam only responded to whatever wishes their publisher partners asked from them.

Also, didn't this cover only third party sales? So consumers had the option of buying keys straight off Steam all the time?
Something very important is missing here, because as it is presented this whole thing doesn't make much sense.

If I understood it correctly, publishers and Valve agreed to geo-block specific Steam keys from certain EU countries. Regardless of where the consumer got such a key (3rd party or Steam), it has to be activated through the Steam platform, which in turn operates within said EU countries as well. So it's kind of a blocking feature of the platform itself, despite operating in EU countries.

In any case, I'm not an expert, so maybe somebody could give a better explanation.

about bleep bleep time EU wakes up

while they at it also fine the shit out of steam for not allowing resale of license.
which is LEGAL in France already a EU Country

they should fine steam for a 100 up to 500 million euro's at least.

It think the gist is not got. From my understanding of the logic thus explained, if pickpocketing is unlawful, but I do it anyway and get 100€, and they catch me and fine me 50€, therefore still 50€ profit.

The logic above is based on the assumption that the customer buy the game regardless but from the expensive home region with active blocking instead of a region where it costs less.

Sure, there are a lot of cases where people will impulse buy a low priced game and reject the game completely on the higher home price. I see it with myself often enough where gog offers "good" deals and in the moment I place them in the cart the price gets jacked up because whatever the reason might be (currency change? Region?) which leads me to boot them out of the cart again (while cursing a lot).

But buying behavior like mine does not fit the reality they wish for (and they are most likely right about that) so they "gladly" pay a fine if its significant lower than the loss they have when adhering to consumer protection laws.

TL/DR: What Titanium said :P