Friday, February 26th 2021

Apple Subpoenas Valve for Steam's Data on 346 Games
Apple and Epic Games have had quite a turbulent history of legal issues in the past year. Fortnite, the world's biggest battle royale game, got removed from the Apple store because its developer, Epic Games, had refused to comply to store rules. If a developer is listing a game on the Apple store, all in-game payments must be processed through Apple, with the company taking a 30% tax cut for it. Epic Games didn't like that idea too much, so the company just used an external system that gave players the option to pay for in-game goods using different ways. However, that represented non-compliance to Apple store guidelines, and Apple took the Fortnite game down.
Update February 26th 07:50 UTC: In thecourt hearing on Wednesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas S. Hixson ordered that Apple's subpoena was considered valid. Valve's lawyers urged the judge to not force the company to produce the requested data, however, Apple's lawyers have said that the request is doable and the company is only requesting data on a few hundred games, and it could have been worse by requesting data on over 30000 games instead.Epic Games has sued the famous fruit company over this practice, however, another big publisher is being dragged into the fight. Valve, the company behind the popular gaming platform, Steam, has just entered the fight. Apple has requested Valve to hand over information about 346 games and its user statistics, meaning the number of monthly, daily, etc. players and other useful information. This information request was made off the court and Valve has denied providing it. In the second attempt by Apple, the information requested was "very narrow" and Valve did not want to provide any more data. The response from Valve was that the company doesn't sell mobile games and has little business in the mobile world, thus making Apple's request irrelevant.
08:15 UTC: Apparently, in the court Valve stated that "Apple Has Not Shown Substantial Need For The Information It Demands", with the court hearing saying that "First, Apple argues the information it demands is necessary to calculate market size and definition. False. Apple, Google and Samsung compete with each other in the mobile app market. Valve does not compete in that market." The statement alone is noting that as Valve doesn't compete in the mobile market, the company will not enter legal disputes between the two companies and remains neutral. Requesting that much data from Valve would require too much work and Apple hasn't proved that there is any need for it, besides Apple's intentions to see the market size of games. Valve also notes that it is not a public company, and Apple's request for sales and earnings figures are illogical.
Sources:
Business Insider, Court Hearing (Valve and Apple)
Update February 26th 07:50 UTC: In thecourt hearing on Wednesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas S. Hixson ordered that Apple's subpoena was considered valid. Valve's lawyers urged the judge to not force the company to produce the requested data, however, Apple's lawyers have said that the request is doable and the company is only requesting data on a few hundred games, and it could have been worse by requesting data on over 30000 games instead.Epic Games has sued the famous fruit company over this practice, however, another big publisher is being dragged into the fight. Valve, the company behind the popular gaming platform, Steam, has just entered the fight. Apple has requested Valve to hand over information about 346 games and its user statistics, meaning the number of monthly, daily, etc. players and other useful information. This information request was made off the court and Valve has denied providing it. In the second attempt by Apple, the information requested was "very narrow" and Valve did not want to provide any more data. The response from Valve was that the company doesn't sell mobile games and has little business in the mobile world, thus making Apple's request irrelevant.
08:15 UTC: Apparently, in the court Valve stated that "Apple Has Not Shown Substantial Need For The Information It Demands", with the court hearing saying that "First, Apple argues the information it demands is necessary to calculate market size and definition. False. Apple, Google and Samsung compete with each other in the mobile app market. Valve does not compete in that market." The statement alone is noting that as Valve doesn't compete in the mobile market, the company will not enter legal disputes between the two companies and remains neutral. Requesting that much data from Valve would require too much work and Apple hasn't proved that there is any need for it, besides Apple's intentions to see the market size of games. Valve also notes that it is not a public company, and Apple's request for sales and earnings figures are illogical.
61 Comments on Apple Subpoenas Valve for Steam's Data on 346 Games
three(Valve doesn't have an OS, therefore can't dictate "pay 4 play" like the others) are getting away with.Like Apple would have complied had the roles been reversed.
So: Steam is fundamentally incomparable in this regard due to it not being related to platform owners whatsoever. The Google Play Store is comparable, but notably different due to the platform's openness to alternatives.
Either of these are, again, uncomparable to consoles due to consoles being single-purpose computers, rather than general-purpose computers like phones, tablets or PCs. That of course doesn't make discussing whether it's right to lock down distribution on consoles, but legally it's quite a different matter. Apple is trying to keep a general-purpose compute platform (iOS and related hardware) with a dominant market share locked down to their own proprietary app distribution service. Comparisons to single-purpose compute platforms, small market share platforms, app distribution services not related to platform holders, or platforms with multiple forms of app distribution are all invalid in one way or another, as each would significantly affect the question of whether this is a monopolistic practice or not.
2. Steam's cut is tiered
3. Steam takes a 0% cut of any sales of steam keys on any other store (like greenmangaming for example) so steam actually encourages competition. So in fact if you don't want to pay fees, don't sell your steam keys on the steam store. Sell them literally wherever you want if you think you can do a better job than steam. Clearly a lot of developers feel it's worth paying that cut though given the number of games up for sale.
Do your homework before posting, they are nothing like steam.
this was the argument and that was considered valid? are they mad?
Tell you what "U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas S. Hixson", I request you pay me 5000 dollars, and you should consider that valid as I could have requested 30.000 dollars instead
Either way Google might be forced in the future to include other stores APK in their Google Store.
- Valve does compete in the mobile space, Steam app, Steam Link, and Underlords with various other future products not yet released.
- Valve's game data is relevant because the scope of this trial is beyond mobile, the scope is the entire gaming industry distrubtuion platforms as well as all auxiliary distribution platforms. Distribution platforms take a cut out of every game sold on their platform. This data is well known and is practiced by Epic as well.
- Epic's argument that they should have their own store on Apple's platform is ridiculous. Apple has a platform they have developed, and consumers are willingly purchasing to use the platform knowing it is walled in. Consumers are willingly purchasing Xbox consoles knowing they are walled in.
The argument Epic has is ridiculous in the fact that they are arguing to be able to provide consumers with direct payments so Epic can generate more profits from their work but are offering no true benefit to the customer while telling customers they should be on board with the lawsuit. Meanwhile, they have a platform that I would call in development on PC practicing the same exact distribution cuts, but they are saintly because they went ahead and took 10% rather than 30% industry standard. Give me a break.Epic will suffer a huge loss in this. Epic wants all the "fruits" of Apple's development and customer base, without any of the work involved.
Sources:
Report: Steam's 30% Cut Is Actually the Industry Standard - IGN
Microsoft Supports Epic Against Apple While Charging 30% in Its Store | gamepressure.com
Epic’s battle for “open platforms” ignores consoles’ massive closed market | Ars Technica Leecher companies that developed the platform that these other companies are able to exist on? Epic hasn't developed a phone a platform in the hands of a billion users that enables their game to exist on a mobile platform through worldwide distribution. I guess the Epic 10% distribution cut isn't defined as leeching, rather giving back to the poor? How Robinhood of them...
Guess apple's app telemetry isn't working very well lol
2: The scope of this is not the entire game industry and games distribution platforms. The scope is whether Apple has the right to wall off a general computation platform to only accept applications from a single source. It is both broader and more specific than what you're saying. Epic's argument isn't directly related to games, they just happen to be a games developer bringing this suit on the basis on a game. It could be any other piece of software without changing the arguments.
3: As I've argued for previously in this thread, single-purpose computation platforms like game consoles are fundamentally incomparable to general-purpose computation platforms like PCs and smartphones, and arguing as if both are the same is thus problematic. There are clearly arguments to be made towards whether Sony or MS has the right to wall off game distribution for their consoles, but this is a fundamentally different issue than walling off all software distribution to a general-purpose device as integrated into a user's life as a smartphone.
I agree that Epic's stance here is fundamentally selfish, but Apple's arguments are also complete nonsense. Android has allowed competing app stores for many years, yet have none of the issues Apple claim will come to pass if they are forced to allow this. Apple is making up arguments purely to avoid losing (some of their) profits, even if they know that >99% of users will still get all their apps and content from the App Store and iTunes - because apple makes billions and billions of dollars on their egregious 30% cuts there (and yes, a 30% cut is equally egregious no matter who charges it, and it's great that we are seeing movement towards lower cuts, which is largely attributable to Epic).
Think about the millions of Steam activation keys sold on Humble Bundle alone. The bandwith Valve has to provide for these 0% cut keys must be insane.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers says quoted:
"
There's some measure of a lack of competition and high barriers to market entry. That said, there appears to be evidence that everyone that uses these kind of platforms to sell games is charging 30%. Whether Epic likes it, the industry and not just Apple seem to be charging that. Right now, Epic is paying Apple nothing. Epic itself charges third parties. This battle won't be won or lost on a TRO, and Apple has a reputation of going the distance so it's not surprising they acted the way they did here, but like I said, they overreached.
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The above quote references the following picture:
Epic is not going to achieve a win through this type of lawsuit because judges don't want to be in this type of judicial territory.
Epic is going to possibly achieve a win through lobbying lawmakers to regulate (which likely won't happen either because the lawmakers receive more money from companies other than Epic), and they already realize this lawsuit isn't going to work for them. See below the path now charted by Epic:
Epic Games behind anti-Apple App Store legislation in North Dakota | AppleInsider
Epic Stopped From Pursuing Apple in the U.K. Over Fortnite Ban - Bloomberg
UPDATE 4-Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint (yahoo.com)