A California magistrate judge has ordered Valve to comply with Apple’s recent request for financial data on over 400 Steam titles.
Earlier this month, Apple approached Steam for data about the yearly sale of apps, IAPs, and external products, along with details about Steam revenue.
The iPhone maker said the information would be used in its long-running legal battle with Epic by allowing it to calculate the “total size of the market for Epic’s digital distribution channels.” Apple explained it has already reached out to Samsung with a similar request, which the court ultimately found relevant to the issue at hand.
Valve pushed back against Apple, and essentially told the company it didn’t see how its data — pulled from a completely different platform and market — would be of any relevance to the case.
“Somehow, in a dispute over mobile apps, a maker of PC games that does not compete in the mobile market or sell ‘apps’ is being portrayed as a key figure,” said Valve. “It’s not.”
As reported by Kotaku, however, a judge has now told Valve to share the data on 436 specific titles sold through Steam from 2017 onward.
Judge Hixson said Valve has until mid-March to comply with the order, telling its legal team that “Apple has salted the earth with subpoenas, so don’t worry, it’s not just you.”
Epic and Apple will head to trial in May 2021 to settle their legal dispute, which sparked into life after the Fortnite maker attempted to circumvent App Store platform fees using third-party payment methods –prompting Apple to pull Fortnite from its platforms.