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Apple want Valve to hand over revenue data as part of legal fight with EpicValve would rather not, obviously
Valve would rather not, obviously
Apple would like Valve to hand over lots of information about how much money they make. Valve would prefer not. This is my two sentence summary of ajoint discovery letter filed yesterday, as part of Apple’s ongoing legal skirmish with Epic Games over Fortnite and Apple app store fees.
What do Valve have to do with that fight between Apple and Epic? Not much, say Valve.
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As part of those preparations, Apple would like Valve to share information about their business. Apple are aiming to demonstrate “the total size of the market for Epic’s available digital distribution channels,” and argues that data for Steam - as a digital distribution channel for games like Fortnite (but not Fortnite) - is essential in that quest. The discovery letter says that Apple and Valve have spoken over the phone a number of times and that Valve have been helpful, but there are two specific requests that Valve are refusing to answer. These are Request 2 and Request 32.
Request 2, Apple argues, “is very narrow.” Specifically, it states that Apple want Valve to provide “(a) total yearly sales of apps and in-app products; (b) annual advertising revenues from Steam; (c) annual sales of external products attributable to Steam; (d) annual revenues from Steam; and (e) annual earnings (whether gross or net) from Steam.”
Request 32 asks for documents “sufficient to show: (a) the name of each App on Steam; (b) the date range when the App was available on Steam; and (c) the price of the App and any in-app product available on Steam.”
Valve, for their part, say that “Apple’s demands would impose an extraordinary burden on Valve to query, process and combine a massive amount of to create the documents Apple seeks — materials that Valve does not create or keep in the ordinary course of business — and with little or no value, as Valve does not compete in the mobile app market at issue.”
Apple apparently initially wanted information on “all 30,000+ games on Steam over ten years,” but reduced that to “436 games over six years,” but Valve argue that this merely “makes an impossible task slightly less impossible.”
The case between Apple and Epic is expected to go to trial this summer.
