Valve ordered to give Apple information on 436 Steam games as part of the Epic Games case

Valve, the maker of the popular game distribution platform Steam, will be forced to hand over the total historical sales, price and other information about 436 games offered in the store to Apple as part of the Apple vs. Epic Games antitrust case.

As reported in a payment-related report of Law360, During a virtual discovery hearing on Wednesday, U.S. Magistrate Thomas S. Hixson ordered that Apple’s subpoena for the data to Valve be valid, but noted that Apple ‘salted the earth with subpoenas,’ and Valve said, do not worry, it’s not just you. ‘According to Apple’s original Valve lawsuit over steam dating back to 2015, however, the judge’s ruling will only require Valve to provide data that is already limited in 2017.

PEpic Games‌ is in a heated legal battle with Apple over the App Store, claiming that the Cupertino technology giant is locking developers into its ecosystem, forcing them to pay a “30% tax” for in-app purchases. Apple’s data lawsuit from Valve is one of many that Apple has put forward, as it tries to prove its point that the ‌App Store‌ as a distribution platform for software is no different.

Gavin W. Stok, an attorney who discovered Valve at the trial, asked Judge Hixson to dismiss the summons and not force his company to provide the information. Stok says that Valve is run by a small team and that gathering all the information Apple requires requires a number of full-time employees to dedicate, and that it can not guarantee that the request can be met in a timely manner. not.

Apple’s attorney Jay P. Srinivasan says the request is feasible, pointing out that Apple could request data on all 30,000 games in the Steam store, but that it would rather only request data on 436 games. Apple went on to defend its lawsuit, calling Valve a “prominent player” in the full picture of relevant markets such as the App Store.

Ahead of the expected trial in July 2021 between Apple and Epic Games, Valve has until mid-March to deliver the data. We reached out to Valve for a comment on the judge’s ruling and will update the page as soon as we hear it.