Valve, the creators behind the popular game distribution platform Steam, will be forced to hand over aggregated historical sales, price and other information about 436 games hosted in the store to Apple as part of the Apple vs. Epic Games Antitrust Case.
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As reported in a paywalled report from Law 360, during a virtual discovery hearing on Wednesday, US magistrate judge Thomas S. Hixson ordered that Apple’s subpoena for the data to Valve be valid, but noted that Apple has “salted the earth with subpoenas,” saying to Valve, “don’t worry. worry, it’s not just you. ”Apple’s original subpoena requested data from Valve on Steam dating back in 2015, however, the judge’s ruling requires Valve to only produce data limited to as early as 2017.
“Epic Games” is in a heated legal battle with Apple over the App Store, claiming that the Cupertino tech giant is locking developers into its ecosystem and forcing them to pay “30% tax” on in-app purchases. Apple’s subpoena for data from Valve is one of many that Apple has brought forward as it tries to prove that the App Store as a software distribution platform is no different from others.
Gavin W. Stok, an attorney who represented Valve at the hearing, urged Judge Hixson to dismiss the subpoena and not force his company to provide the data. Stok says that Valve is run by a small team and that collecting all the data Apple asks for should ensure that it has “multiple employees working full time,” and that it could not guarantee that the request could be fulfilled on time. satisfied.
Apple’s attorney, Jay P. Srinivasan, says the request is enforceable and points out that Apple could have requested data on all 30,000 games on the Steam store, but instead only requests data on 436 games. Apple continued to defend his subpoena, calling Valve a “prominent player” in the full picture of relevant markets such as the “App Store”.
Ahead of what is expected to be a heated court hearing between Apple and Epic Games in July 2021, Valve has until mid-March to produce the data. We’ve reached out to Valve for a comment on the judge’s ruling and will update the page as soon as we hear back.