[ad_1]
Valve was forced by a California court to provide Apple with sales data for more than 400 Steam games and possibly reveal its annual sales, revenue and profits to Apple as well. IPhone maker has sued Valve over the data in its ongoing dispute with Fortnite developer Epic Games.
According to an order from Judge Thomas Hixson on Wednesday, Valve will have to provide annual sales and price data for 436 games available on both its PC game distribution platform, Steam, and the Epic Games Store. Apple has requested the data so it can define the video game market in its case against Epic.
In a filing published on February 18, Valve argued that Apple’s requests were too broad. Apple had requested even more data in its subpoena, including annual Steam revenue, the name of each app on Steam, and the date range of those apps’ availability. Valve argued that the requests “would impose an extraordinary burden” on the company.
Valve has also been forced to share “aggregate data” on what it earns from Steam, although what this implies is unclear. Apple had requested the following:
RFP 2 requires sufficient documentation to show since 2008 (a) Valve’s total annual sales from Steam apps and in-app purchases, (b) annual ad revenue attributable to Steam, (c) annual external product sales attributable to Steam, (d) the annual revenue of Steam, and (e) the annual revenue, income or profit of Steam. Apple requests this information per app if it is available. During the meeting and conference, Apple limited the relevant period from 2015 to today.
In his decision, Judge Hixson largely sided with Apple. “In the brief for the letter, Valve said it would be an overwhelming amount of work, but other than the use of adjectives, it didn’t justify or quantify the burden in any way,” Hixson said.
“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 this 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 usually doesn’t provide any sales data, although you can find simple unordered lists of the best selling games each month.
Hixson has reduced the amount of information Valve has to provide. While Apple requested data going back to 2015, Hixson ruled that Valve should only produce data from 2017 to today.
Epic sued Apple in August after removing Apple Fortnite from the App Store for introducing an integrated payment system which he said violated the rules of the App Store.
[ad_2]
Source link