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- Court documents show Apple is trying to subpoena Valve in its fight against Epic Games.
- Valve declined to release certain information about its revenue and the games it hosts.
- Valve says Apple is asking for too much information, given that it is not a mobile platform.
- Visit Insider’s Business section for more stories.
Apple’s fight with Epic Games apparently draws other video game companies into its network.
A joint court letter filed Thursday and spotted by Ars Technica reveals that Apple attempted to sue Valve, the company behind the hugely popular online game store Steam, for information.
Apple has been engaged in a legal battle with Epic Games, the studio behind the hugely popular “Fortnite”, since August. The fight centers on Epic Games’ refusal to comply with Apple’s App Store rules on payments built into its iOS version of “Fortnite”.
Apple requires app developers to use its own payment system, which levies an automatic 30% tax on in-app purchases. Epic Games claims it’s anti-competitive and, in August, decided to implement its own payment system, after which Apple kicked “Fortnite” from the App Store.
Epic Games then sued Apple, and the two companies have fought since – Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to file a seven-hour deposition before the case goes to court in May. Epic Games kept up the pressure, filing an antitrust complaint with the EU this week.
Valve is not directly involved in the legal fight between the two companies. Apple said it was requesting documents showing Valve’s annual sales and revenue, as well as information about each application on Steam, including its prices, in order to better understand the market in which Epic Games operates.
Apple complains in its letter that Valve has resisted some of its requests for information and that when it submitted information, it was heavily redacted.
Valve claims that Apple is asking for too much information, given that Valve is not an affected party in its fight with Epic Games and it is not a mobile platform. More generally, Valve also claims that, being a distributor of PC games, the information it can provide is largely irrelevant to the fight between Apple and Epic Games.
“Valve does not manufacture or sell mobile phones, tablets or video games, nor does it compete in the mobile market,” he said in the letter. He added that Apple’s requests would place an “extraordinary burden” on Valve to collect all the data Apple wants.
“The extensive and highly confidential information Apple is requesting on a subset of PC games available on Steam does not show the size or parameters of the affected market and would be extremely cumbersome to compile,” Valve said in its letter.
Apple argues that Valve should be obligated to provide the information because Samsung has complied with similar requests. Valve’s counter-argument is that Samsung is a public company, so it’s used to keeping records of this kind of information, which could be produced much faster and easier.
“Somehow, in a mobile applications dispute, a PC game maker that does not compete in the mobile market or sell ‘apps’ is being portrayed as a character. key.
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