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.