 |
| Steam data is claimed by Apple for over 400 games |
In an ongoing lawsuit with Epic Games, Apple filed a lawsuit against Valve in November 2020 for using digital video game publishing service Steam to provide comprehensive sales data for more than 400 games.
Apple has asked Valve to provide a large amount of business data about Steam sales and activity over the next several years. The move was taken as part of the battle between Apple and Epic Games to avoid paying fees from the App Store.
Apple believes that Steam data is required to calculate the market size of the distribution channels available to Epic Games because Epic Games could theoretically offer its games through Steam and other digital marketplaces.
However, the data is also of great value in assessing the games and apps market. In this area, Apple's iOS app store continues to compete with the Steam market.
Valve claims Apple's requirements are different and conflicts with requirements, as Apple wants Valve's document to show:
Annual total sales with in-app apps and products.
Annual advertising revenue from Steam.
Annual sales with Steam overseas products.
Steam annual sales.
Annual gross or net income from Steam.
Apple said in the document: The court asked Samsung to provide almost the same information. Plus, Apple Valve always provides documentation explaining the following:
The name of any app on Steam.
The date range in which the app can be used through Steam.
Prices for apps and all in-app products are available through Steam.
Believing the requirements are very general, Valve said Apple has provided us with a list of 436 video games. These videos are available through the Epic Game Store and Steam and we have been asked to identify each version of each game and all content. Steam or previous digital projects have provided extensive information on them from 2015 until now.
The information requested includes sale history, price changes, total revenue from game releases, projects, and separate divisions, and Valve's revenue related to those releases, content and projects.
Valve explained that these requirements place a heavy burden on querying, processing and consolidating large numbers of documents to create the documents Apple needs, and that this data is not preserved as part of normal business.
The document shows that Apple has reduced all data requirements for more than 30,000 games on Steam to 436 games within a decade.