According to the California judge overseeing Apple's attempts to drag Valve into its dispute with Epic Games, Apple has "salted the earth with subpoenas. Nevertheless, Thomas Hixon issued an evidentiary order (discovered by iMore) asking Valve to produce certain Steam information requested by Apple, which Valve is resisting with all its might.

It's a primer on the basic arguments on both sides, but the short version is that Apple subpoenaed Valve because certain Steam information is crucial to building its case with Epic regarding competition practices; Valve claims that Apple's case with Epic is all mobile, and Apple is using this as a fishing expedition to obtain large amounts of third-party data, and Valve has already shared limited information, which it believes is sufficient for Apple's cause.

Needless to say, Apple's lawyers disagreed. At the latest hearing, Apple refuted Valve's claims and, in the process, articulated its reasons for seeking to drag Valve into litigation with Epic; according to Judge Hixon's discovery order, Apple's subpoena "seeks information relating to the effects of competition." In these related lawsuits, the plaintiffs argue that Apple's 30% commission on sales through the App Store is anti-competitive and that allowing iOS apps to be sold through other stores would force Apple to reduce its commission to a more competitive level. Now, Steam is the largest video game store for PCs, but it too charges a 30% fee.

You see where this argument is going: Apple is trying to show that the advent of the Epic Games Store has not affected the fees that Valve charges Steam. Epic is also the one who compared the more open environment of mobile iOS to that of the Mac. However, if the Epic Games Store did not force Valve to lower its fees, that argument would be quite shaky.

"Epic Games opened its video game store for PC in December 2018, and Epic charges a fee lower than 30%. by concentrating [the charge 32] on 436 specific games sold on both the Steam and Epic stores, Apple, seeking to take discovery as to whether the availability of other stores actually affects the fees in the manner alleged by Plaintiffs."

Valve's claim that Apple is using Valve as a shortcut to third-party nice data was also dismissed. The Court disagrees."

"The Court disagrees. Requiring Apple to subpoena individual game developers and obtain their pricing and sales information would be unduly burdensome. It added that any protective order in this case should be sufficiently confidential (again, part of Valve's argument).

Finally, Valve's argument that it is a private company and that this information is a competitive advantage was also disregarded. The "Court disagrees, as well, that Valve's decision to remain a private company means that it avoids the disclosure and reporting obligations of a public company, but it does not immunize Valve from discovery." Accordingly, any documents filed to date that have been redacted are required to be filed without redaction.

Apple's counsel argued that the document must be filed by March 8, 2021, in order to submit claims based on it for a hearing on March 15. The court ordered Valve to submit the information in Request 2 by March 8, a narrowing of the focus of Apple's original request, no small thing: "The court narrowed [Request 2] and ordered Valve to submit the information on both the Steam and Epic Games stores available on the 436 apps only (because it would be an unnecessary burden for Valve to provide that information separately for all 30,000+ apps) and order it to do so within 30 days. "

The other issue was Request 32, which sought "(a) the name of each App on Steam, (b) the date range when the App was available on Steam, and (c) the price of the App and in-app products available on Steam." The court granted this, but only from 2017 (Apple had requested 2015: the judge noted that the Epic Store did not begin until 2018.) Valve is ordered to submit this information within 30 days.

It will come as no surprise to learn that this latest development is far from the end of the battle between Apple and Valve, much less their brewing battle with Epic. The lawsuit was first filed in August 2020, and since then there has been an enormous amount of correspondence, hearings, and document production. This discovery order is the 356th document produced so far in this litigation, obviously a somewhat meaningless number, but it gives you an idea of the paperwork these legal eagles are producing; Valve will no doubt appeal and continue to fight this discovery order, and the court will be looking for more information on the documents that have been produced.

Apple told PC Gamer that it would not comment on Valve's case.

"For 12 years, the App Store has helped developers turn great ideas into world-changing apps. Our priority has always been to provide customers with a safe and trusted place to download software and to apply the rules equally to all developers. Epic did this with the clear intent to enable features in their app that were not reviewed and approved by Apple and to violate the App Store guidelines that apply equally to all developers and protect customers. Their reckless behavior makes them pawns of their customers and we look forward to making this clear to the Commission."

I contacted Valve for comment on the order and whether they would appeal.

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