Valve has confirmed it is working on a new set of tools designed to fill the void left by Steam Spy’s demise. All this in the wake of Steam introducing more stringent privacy settings in compliance with GDPR requirements. Steam Spy was previously the go to source of market data and analytics. It allowed developers to understand how well games were selling and provided a more or less accurate idea of a specific title’s popularity.
This Spring, sweeping privacy laws meant online platforms had to amend the way personal details were accessed, notably personal libraries reverted to being private, meaning the API no longer provided crucial data for Steam Spy to create a selection of estimates and rankings.
During a Q&A at the Russian White Nights 18 conference in St Petersburg, Valve’s head of business development, Jan-Peter Ewert, was questioned around the company’s plans to offer similar tools to developers allowing them to extract crucial data from Steam, reports PCGamesN. Ewert conceded that tools were lacking and the community had previously been the best source of solutions making use of Steam’s API.
Ewert went on to say that though Steam Spy provided a useful service, it ‘had a broad variance in how accurate it was. It was very accurate for some games, it was very inaccurate for some others.’ Valve are hoping to craft a tool to tackle these misgivings and provide more accurate sales forecasting for developers. He added that Valve is actively ‘working on new tools and new ways of getting data out of Steam, and we hope that data can be more accurate and more useful than what Steam Spy previously offered you.’
Steam Spy creator Sergey Galyonkin tweeted his support for Valve’s new tools, saying he was eager to discover what they would offer.
Among the gaming community there are concerns a Valve operated alternative to Steam Spy may limit access to developers. Steam Spy was often used by gamers, journalists, and developers alike to glean clues as to how titles were performing.
