Valve is drawn into Apple and Epic’s legal battle for Fortnite

Apple’s bitter legal dispute with Epic Games over the distribution of Fortnite on iOS has now successfully stringed into Valve. Apple has assigned the Steam maker to a wide range of PC game sales data that it says is crucial to its business. But Valve is defending itself against the subpoena, saying its information is proprietary, irrelevant to Apple’s case and would be expensive and difficult to generate.

As noted in a joint letter from Apple and Valve filed in Northern California District Court this week, Apple’s November subpoena seeks two broad categories of information that Valve refuses to provide:

• Documents sufficient to show Valve: (a) total annual sales of in-app applications and products; (b) Steam’s annual advertising revenue; (c) annual sales of external products attributable to Steam; (d) the annual revenues of Steam; and (e) the annual revenues (gross or net) of Steam; as well as
• (a) The name of each application on Steam; (b) the date range that the application was available on Steam; and (c) the price of the application and any integrated product available on Steam.

While Valve responded to certain other parts of Apple’s subpoena, Apple says the information was “so heavily written that Apple cannot discern what information it might contain.”

why do you need it?

The information requested, according to Apple, is essential to establish other platforms which “may be economical substitutes” for the iOS App Store when it comes to distributing Fortnite, as noted in previous decisions in the case. Valve’s information is “crucial in calculating the total market size of Epic’s available digital distribution channels,” says Apple.

But Valve maintains that Steam is an unrelated side show in the battle between Apple and Epic. “Valve does not manufacture or sell phones, tablets, or video games for mobile devices, nor does it compete in the mobile market,” the company writes. “Fortnite is not available on Steam, and Epic has stated publicly and unequivocally that it will not offer Fortnite on Steam unless Valve changes its business model. “

While Apple claims that Valve “admits that the requested information exists in an undisclosed and easily accessible format,” Valve claims that complying would involve “an overwhelming amount of work” and “place an extraordinary burden on Valve to query, process and combine a massive amount of [information] to create the documents that Apple searches for. “

Valve says this process would involve collecting information from at least four separate databases for thousands of separate items. Valve also claims that Apple has not offered to cover the costs of this data collection process.

Protect private data

Apple cites a previous court order for similar sales information from Samsung saying the court should compel Valve to comply. But Valve maintains that “Apple, Google and Samsung compete in the mobile application market. Valve does not compete in this market.”

Valve also argues that the fact that it is a private company offers an important distinction from the Samsung public. “Valve has chosen to remain private in part to avoid the burden of public company disclosure and reporting obligations to which companies like Samsung or Google are subject,” the company writes. “Valve does not disclose its sales and revenue information and projections, and Valve derives significant value and benefit from the confidentiality of this information, including keeping it out of the hands of companies like Epic that also sell PC games. “

Valve’s argument takes on increased relevance given the company’s 2018 decision to effectively block services like Steam Spy or Ars’ own Steam Gauge from creating public estimates of Steam game sales based on samples. data from individual public user accounts. Valve said in July 2018 that it was working on a “more accurate” replacement for this Steam Spy data, but only released sporadic and incomplete summaries of the Steam market in the years that followed.

In all cases, Apple argues that any confidential or sensitive information on competition provided by Valve could be covered by a protection order, such as that in force for Samsung. Apple also argues that “the information sought by this application does not detail future plans or involve strategic assessments … there is no substantial risk of competitive or economic harm. [to Valve]. “

But Valve remains adamant the information is private and unnecessary to Apple’s current legal fight. “One way or another, in a mobile apps dispute, a maker of PC games that don’t compete with the mobile market or sell ‘apps’ is being portrayed as a key figure,” Valve writes. . “It’s not.”