Valve fucks Steamspy

https://steamcommunity.com/games/593…96941884942467
https://twitter.com/Steam_Spy/status/983879694658437120

I wonder what caused this. Lobbying by big industry players maybe? It's a shame, Steamspy had some interesting data.

My guess the facebook scandal.

Steamspy might have had some interesting insights, but having more privacy options as a customers is usually a good thing.

I see one of the complaints is that the games you play are private by default. I certainly prefer having to open up things I want to share in stead of having to close what I want to keep private.

Many consider Steamspy a very useful tool, and see this move by Valve as terrible. But if that service depends on information I want to keep to myself, my priority is my privacy.

Another issue is whether the games I play are the most important things to hide, compared to what I can't hide on Steam. (Or on other platforms).

pibbur who admits he may not see the full picture here.

Originally Posted by abharsair
Steamspy might have had some interesting insights, but having more privacy options as a customers is usually a good thing.

Sure is. If you're asked about it first.
My steam profile and library was and will remain public - I did not ask Valve to hide my library thus I'll change the stupid Valve's decision on what's default.

Valve should have disabled trolling on steam forums to people with private profiles, not turning everyone's library into private.

This decision has all to do with steam's concerns about players' privacy.

I'd assume that this has something to do with the European Union's general data protection regulation which will be coming into effect in may.

All about Facebook absolutely

Or with the fact that SteamSpy provides data at a discount when Steam is used to sell them.

I, for one, are happy that Steam will allow data about me to be less accessible to people I never said yes to sharing with.

I'm all for a company protecting my data and information, if it is a service that I use. This crazy era of sharing information about customers is seriously getting out of hand, I suspect some more regulations are on the way.

Originally Posted by Dez
I'd assume that this has something to do with the European Union's general data protection regulation which will be coming into effect in may.

Yes GDPR is now a requirement for all companies operating within Europe basically and tries to ensure privacy of the customers is safeguarded better than before.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

Yeah, GDPR really puts a dampener on selling all of your data for loads of money

Maybe I missed something here, but couldn't steam just sends stats to steamspy without any user information? That is if steam see any value in steamspy of course.

How are we going to get PC sales numbers for ELEX now?

The numbers for sales will show up in the bank accounts of the vendors, it really isn't anyone else's concern, right? This sounds like a whole lot of chatter about absolutely nothing, from what I can tell.

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
Maybe I missed something here, but couldn't steam just sends stats to steamspy without any user information? That is if steam see any value in steamspy of course.

No. Information was not shared with SteamSpy, they used to collect data that were public, sample them and interpolate them.

It was a disconnected source that has nothing to do with Steam. Steam feeding them the required data voids SS services.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
The numbers for sales will show up in the bank accounts of the vendors, it really isn't anyone else's concern, right? This sounds like a whole lot of chatter about absolutely nothing, from what I can tell.

They are a concern for anyone interested in sales number. That is a lot of people.
The removal of SS removes a way to double check information and double checking number of sales is crucial to many people.

Beside and more importantly, SS used aggregate data. Sharing aggregate data is a different thing from sharing personal data to target people specifically.
Collecting data to reach the conclusion that a product sells one million copies tells little about customers, it tells about the seller, the size of the associated market.

Steam could as well sell the same data with no issue as it provides no direct information on customers.

The result of the move is more opacity and little done to protect privacy as SS data collection did not endanger privacy.

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
Maybe I missed something here, but couldn't steam just sends stats to steamspy without any user information? That is if steam see any value in steamspy of course.

Exactly, if Valve cared about it they wouldn't even have to send it anywhere or even make it available via API, they could simply release it themselves. They have that information and worlds more, all 100% accurate.

Valve just doesn't care, they don't care about much these days. These privacy settings changes, just like their refund system, are due to EU laws.



The privacy change is for the better, any such information should be private as a default state without any "terms and conditions" attached to maintaining it, unfortunately it takes laws for such decencies to be the norm.

Though it is unfortunate to lose Steamspy as it's not just interesting and informative to users, for small and independent devs who have to make important and intrinsic decisions it's important having access to such statistics. Such things easily effect the type and success of games.

Still I suspect the title of this threat being correct is pure chance. While privacy laws are the actual reason for the changes made by Valve, Valve could extremely easily make that information available via many ways.

This is typical Valve fashion, Steam is the harbour of in Indie Games yet doesn't provide the world of information that could drastically effect what the indies do, not to mention their chances of success, which would in turn benefit Valve, and in the long term even the industry.


Also would like to congratulate an earlier post displaying incredible cognitive dissonance without even realising it, it was quite the stunner.

Making the data available directly might be a bit more than they don't care. Their customers might not approve of such (not the end user by game developers).
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It is true that as a monopoly Valve concerns are more narrow than a smaller company - having said that no distribution service releases such data.

Originally Posted by Watchtower
Exactly, if Valve cared about it they wouldn't even have to send it anywhere or even make it available via API, they could simply release it themselves. They have that information and worlds more, all 100% accurate.

Valve just doesn't care, they don't care about much these days.

.