Apple has sued Valve in its ongoing lawsuit against Epic Games, claiming it provided large amounts of commercial data on steam sales and operations dating back several years, the court documents revealed (via PC player).
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The lawsuit was filed by Apple in November 2020, arguing that information about Valve’s digital distribution service, Steam, would be crucial to expanding its case against Epic Games.
Apple has asked Valve to provide documents to show its total annual sales of apps and in-app products, annual advertising revenue, annual sales of external products, and annual revenue and earnings from Steam. There are also more detailed requests for the name of each app on Steam, the date range when each app was available, and the price of all apps and in-app purchases.
It apparently initially addressed the demand for information on more than 30,000 games, but Apple has since reduced its focus to about 600 games. Nevertheless, Apple still insists on receiving documents about each version of a given product and a large amount of financial information about Valve’s business.
Apple believes that Steam ‘is the dominant distributor of digital games on the PC platform and a direct competitor to the Epic Game Store’, so information on the sales and operations of the digital market can show the scope of the market that the pEpic Games Store competition. in. Apple argues that Valve should provide this information, as it is not available elsewhere, and “does not pose the risk of competitive harm.”
While Apple and Valve apparently met several times to meet, Valve refused to provide much of the information Apple requested in the subpoena. Valve says it has collaborated to a reasonable degree by delivering documents on revenue sharing, competing with Epic, Steam distribution contracts, and more, but claims that the request for six years of PC game and article sales for hundreds of third-party games and confidential information about these games and Valve’s revenue is unreasonable.
The company also scoffed at Apple’s request for Valve’s involvement in the case, as Steam is not a competitor in the mobile space, saying: “Valve is not Epic, and Fortnite is not available on Steam. ” Valve goes so far as to claim that Apple is using the request as a shortcut to a large amount of commercially sensitive third-party data.
Somehow, a manufacturer of computer games that does not compete in the mobile market or sells ‘apps’ is portrayed in a dispute over mobile apps. It is not. The extensive and highly confidential information that Apple has about a subset of the computer games available on Steam does not require the size or parameters of the relevant market, and it will be very difficult to work with. Apple’s claims for further production must be rejected.
Valve added that he did not even keep all the information that Apple was looking for, as it is not normally needed, and that he was now asking the court to dismiss Apple’s subpoena. Meanwhile, Apple’s lawsuit with Epic Games continues.