Judge Orders Valve To Release Data On 436 Games To Apple Over Epic Dispute
Last week, Apple attempted to drag Valve into the legal standoff with Epic Games by requesting a large quantity of data from the PC games creator and seller. While this request appeared out of place, the subpoena seems to have worked, as a judge has told Valve Corp. to hand over certain data from the request.
During a Zoom court hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas S. Hixon ordered Valve to produce “aggregate historical sales, pricing and other data on 436 games sold on the virtual game store Steam,” according to Law360. This is significantly less than the original request for information on every Steam game dating back to 2015. Thankfully, the judge saw the flaws in this request and limited it to data from 436 games going back to 2017.
Interestingly enough, Judge Hixon also stated to Valve’s counsel that, as it appeared to him, “Apple has salted the earth with subpoenas, so don't worry, it's not just you.” It seems that the court is ultimately curious to see how Apple uses Valve Corp’s information in the ongoing court case with Epic Games. It is certainly interesting as Valve is a PC games platform and is not the only competitor there, whereas Apple is the only legitimate app store on iOS.
In any case, Valve has until mid-March to produce the data requested, but it is possible that may not be enough time. Valve’s counsel, including Gavin W. Skok and Jaemin Chang, explained that “there are multiple versions of the games, each with its own packages and items that users can purchase, so pulling the data for just one of the 436 games requested would require many hours of work.” We will have to see how this all pans out and if Valve continues to fight the subpoena or puts its nose to the grindstone to produce the data. Either way, keep an eye on HotHardware for updates on this interesting turn in the Apple and Epic Games saga.
