Valve was compelled by a California court to provide sales data for more than 400 Steam games to Apple and possibly reveal its annual sales, revenue and profits to Apple as well. The iPhone maker subpoenaed Valve for the data as part of its ongoing dispute with Fifteen days developer Epic Games.
According to a Wednesday order from Judge Thomas Hixson, Valve will have to provide annual sales and pricing data for 436 games that are available on its PC game distribution platform, Steam, and on the Epic Games Store. Apple requested the data to define the video game market in its case against Epic.
In a document published on February 18, Valve argued that Apple’s demands were too broad. Apple asked for even more data in its subpoena, including annual Steam revenues, the name of each application on Steam, and the date range when those applications were available. Valve argued that the demands “would impose an extraordinary burden” on the company.
Valve was also compelled to share “aggregate data” about how much it earns with Steam, although it is unclear exactly what this will entail. Apple had requested the following:
RFP 2 asks for sufficient documents since 2008 to show (a) total annual app sales and in-app purchases from Steam, (b) annual advertising revenue attributable to Steam, (c) annual sales of external products attributable to Steam, ( d) Steam’s annual revenue and (e) Steam’s annual earnings, revenue or profits. Apple asks for this information per application, if available. During the meeting and conference, Apple limited the relevant period from 2015 to the present.
In his decision, Judge Hixson broadly supported Apple. “In the letter’s summary, Valve said it would be a huge amount of work, but in addition to using adjectives, it did not substantiate or quantify the burden in any way,” said Hixson.
“Apple has shown that it has a substantial need for this information to obtain evidence to support its arguments regarding market definition and the effects of competition, and it cannot obtain that information elsewhere without undue burden,” he added. “Valve offers several reasons why Apple did not meet this standard, but none are convincing.” Valve is the largest PC game store in existence and generally does not provide any sales data, although you can find simple unordered lists of the best selling games each month.
Hixson has limited the amount of information Valve has to provide. While Apple requested data dating back to 2015, Hixson determined that Valve only needs to produce data from 2017 to the present.
Epic sued Apple in August after Apple removed Fifteen days App Store for introducing an in-app payment system that he said violated App Store rules.