Well, there's region-specific pricing to consider as the game isn't USD$60 everywhere. However, even assuming for the moment that everybody bought the game from the Chinese store (which isn't even remotely the case, in no small part because it's a gift/trade-restricted region), ~750k copies sold is still ~$12.5m after Valve's cut.
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Techland requests SteamSpy to remove their sales data; SteamSpy owner annoyed
- Thread starter hamchan
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Well, there's region-specific pricing to consider as the game isn't USD$60 everywhere. However, even assuming for the moment that everybody bought the game from the Chinese store (which isn't even remotely the case, in no small part because it's a gift/trade-restricted region), ~750k copies sold is still ~$12.5m after Valve's cut.
We can't know. Hence why I hedged my comment.
I agree with you, but so far the number of publishers who requested a desist are... What, three? Four? And I'm aware of tens of devs and publishers who do actually look at the data and find it very useful (usually in the run up to officially getting the numbers).
There's this, too. The data is all public sphere. Even if SteamSpy Guy shut down his site, he could promote his app to github or whatever, allowing anyone to aggregate sales data based on users.
It would be exactly the same, just not 'published' on a website. Nothing would change.
And even if he then "destroyed" his app somehow, you or I or any other average joe could easily make it again. It's all public info.
Squad and Paradox are the only two that requested it. Others have been mostly fine with it because the data isn't actually 100% accurate but closer to like 80-90% accurate.
Garry Newman, creator of Garry's Mod and Rust, is supportive of this move at least.
Transparency of publicly available data is rarely a bad thing, even if it leads to some people jumping to false conclusions.
I'm not sure Valve are going to want to put in that amount of work to disable key features of their store-front.
They could limit what's publicly viable by default on profiles, I suppose.
Transparency of publicly available data is rarely a bad thing, even if it leads to some people jumping to false conclusions.
I'm not sure Valve are going to want to put in that amount of work to disable key features of their store-front.
They could limit what's publicly viable by default on profiles, I suppose.
Dusk Golem
A 21st Century Rockefeller
This is something that SteamSpy makes clear but I think is important to remind sometimes in these topics; the data comes from public Steam profiles who have the game on their account. It's public information, but do know the information is not conclusive as it doesn't count people who have their accounts set to private, but it does try to scale its estimate to hidden accounts as well.
Real_Madrid
Member
Jup, this is going to happen sooner than later imo. And publishers have the right to make their game data invisible.
Off topic, but I find Steamspy's data to be a little bit deceitful anyway, because people always make revenue conclusions on the provided sales data.
JasoNsider
Member
Yeah, I hadn't considered the complete inverse situation, but you're right that is equally problematic.
If it's not going away, it just means we all have to adapt. You might have big successes where employees are now demanding more. You might have a flop, making your company persona non grata at future events (though that's a bit exaggerated). Basically if this isn't going away, it's best we get cozy with it. (personally I'd be happy if this was kept confidential between distributors and developers)
BronsonLee
Member
If someone asks you to take their shit down, take it down you dope
diablos991
Can’t stump the diablos
Good move.
Data is fantastic and should not be censored.
Data is fantastic and should not be censored.
Actually, in KSP's case it doesn't really have to be rich. It has to do with them not paying their fucking devs properly.
s_mirage
Member
To cut the story short: Squad were one of the only publishers who wanted their data removed from Steamspy. Later, an ex Kerbal dev revealed that Squad were paying their employees insultingly low wages, demanding massive amounts of crunch, and then firing them as soon as their work was finished. So, it becomes a little clearer why they might want to hide sales data from their own employees.
Hah, valve more likely to just acquire Steam Spy and make it an official part of steam.
Uh, no, of course not.
Hmm, kind of conflicted about this. On the one hand Steam Spy provides data that is of interest to consumers and potentially developers as well. On the other I generally believe developers requesting not to have their data public should be honored as it prevents bad blood between Steam Spy and developers.
Ultimately I think I'm on Steam Spy's side since it seems with the way things are going it'll eventually be pretty useless if people keep opting out. Developers generally have something to gain by having their competitor's numbers known as it gives them useful benchmarks and something to compare their performance against. Having their own numbers known by the public is generally will have a neutral or negative effect, since they can leverage the information better when it's a secret. So it's probably in each individual company's interest not to have their sales visible and retain control of the ability to make their own sales known or not. However when everyone does it, then everyone loses out of the advantages Steam Spy provides. It's not so much about any individual company being wrong for wanting to keep this info hidden, but how it affects the system in aggregate. And since the data is collected from public steam profiles there's nothing really wrong with the acquisition method.
Ultimately I think I'm on Steam Spy's side since it seems with the way things are going it'll eventually be pretty useless if people keep opting out. Developers generally have something to gain by having their competitor's numbers known as it gives them useful benchmarks and something to compare their performance against. Having their own numbers known by the public is generally will have a neutral or negative effect, since they can leverage the information better when it's a secret. So it's probably in each individual company's interest not to have their sales visible and retain control of the ability to make their own sales known or not. However when everyone does it, then everyone loses out of the advantages Steam Spy provides. It's not so much about any individual company being wrong for wanting to keep this info hidden, but how it affects the system in aggregate. And since the data is collected from public steam profiles there's nothing really wrong with the acquisition method.
Yeah I'm not arguing it shouldn't exist, just highlighting one of the downsides. I agree that on the whole it is a good thing.
I don't think it will continue in an unrestricted manner indefinitely given the commercial realities it has to coexist with, but I don't want to see it gone or anything.
Yeah, perhaps that would be a good enough solution. I agree Valve will as usually be looking for the path of least resistance to satisfy the different parties wanting something from them.
This is the number one main reason they want to hide it. I've worked at several devs that purposefully would block any attempts of the employees to find out any sales info because once you realize your game has sold 4.5 million copies and you've seen zero royalties for it things get a bit dicey.
Valve ninjas sure worked fast!
Until Valve gets pissed, at least.
If a developers like R star, Bethesda, TTwo, Activision and many others come knocking, Valve will do something. Also Tland are getting pretty big and I think they could sell their games elsewhere and still make decent sales.
Na, that's bullshit. All of this data is collected from public profiles. It would be like the Trump campaign demanding that Trump's polling numbers remain hidden because it "damages" his brand.
Ha. Doubtful. CDProjekt can't even manage to get a majority of people to buy The Witcher 3 on GOG, a well established platform, even with better incentives to do so.
s_mirage
Member
Exactly. There's no motivation for Valve to do a damn thing if publishers moan to them.
None of those have though, have they? The point remains: unless they are actually prepared to pull their games from the overwhelmingly most popular digital storefront, and face the ire of their customers, the publishers have no leverage to make Valve do anything.
Real_Madrid
Member
You cannot make revenue conclusions based on Steamspy data.
It's not their shit though.
Indeed.
Abilidebob
Member
That's NOT going to end well. I think it's silly for devs and publishers to ask Steamspy to hide their data, but they're in their rights to do so. Not complying is just going to lead to:
1. Legal action/threats against Steamspy
2. Valve doing something against Steamspy, maybe even by blocking their api or removing game list from public profiles if you aren't friends.
In both cases Steamspy and by extension, us, are going to get the short end of the stick.
1. Legal action/threats against Steamspy
2. Valve doing something against Steamspy, maybe even by blocking their api or removing game list from public profiles if you aren't friends.
In both cases Steamspy and by extension, us, are going to get the short end of the stick.
Or you could just respect their request.
YianGaruga
Banned
you can make rough estimates close to launch
let's just say that NMS made a fuckton
> the point
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> you
Have a read of this page. For one thing, the data is all public sphere - so even if the guy shut the site down, you or I could go find it again anyway. But more importantly, a couple of the publishers who have requested not having their data on there are potentially doing it so that their employees (who they fired right before release) couldn't find out how much money their games made.
But that's something that has to be taken into account with a site like SteamSpy. Everybody - The owner, the publishers and the users, have to play nice and reach a middle ground or Daddy V is going to stop looking the other way the fun ends for everyone.
While I'd rather he didn't listen to those requests at all, if he's just going to do his own thing I can't see a bright future there.
These ones specifically don't seem to care about SteamSpy as there were no requests from them to hide the data.
Why would anyone do that, the data is (currently) publicly available.
If publishers don't want this data to be publicly available, there are other ways to sell games where the data is not publicly available. There is no OriginSpy, uPlaySpy or GogSpy.
UcchedavÄda
Member
Good on him. Steam Spy is a really interesting service, even if the data that it collects can be misunderstood, and the existence of tools like Steam Spy are a boon to enthusiasts. Hopefully this doesn't come back and bite him in the ass.
It would be unrealistic to expect Valve to ignore the noise, though. It's a business, not a 12-year-old child. I mean, CS:GO betting websites weren't a bad thing for Valve, either.
There can be no legal action against steamspy because it isn't doing anything illegal.
It's just analyzing public data in an automated process.
For the very same reason publishers also dont have the right to hide it.
It's public information. If they want something done about it, they can complain to Valve about it. SteamSpy is collecting and aggregating public information, and have zero legal reason to stop doing so.
So no, they really should not respect any request from a developer who wants what is public information hidden solely to protect their own interests.
1) What legal action can they press over public data? If that was possible, polling companies would be out of business as soon as they published unfavorable results.
2) Valve's API exists to prevent people from bot combing the same data from the public profiles on Steam, eating up a lot of server resources for nothing. I doubt they are going to block the API over this when Steamspy has been fine for 18 months now. Their only stipulation was that you can't charge money for the API data.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
I'm an amateur, part-time indie developer and I want the data available.
This is criminal behaviour. Shouldn't this be the short of shite that gets the government to shut down a company?
#sorrynotsorry
Member
Is no one else going to call him out on how this site in general is obviously not for the developers? There are legitimate reasons to hide this info. You're hurting dev bargaining positions by posting it. He's a scumbag.
Real_Madrid
Member
You really think that's how big companies like Valve and let's say Activision behave/talk to each other?
hobblygobbly
Member
Should a company tell me I'm not supposed to go through all my friends steam profiles and see what games they own and compile how many own x game? The company has no right to tell me what I can do with publicly available data. That's what Steamspy does, it goes through steam user profiles which by default displays what games they own and compiles it. Not to mention it's even important to its own employees that are sometimes not privy to how much the game they worked on has sold because of corporate bullshit.
Companies can't take any legal action against Steamspy or Valve, they're not doing anything wrong, otherwise companies would've been sending them legal letters a long time ago. Fact is, companies don't like their employees and public knowing stuff about them and that's why they want to hide it. Their wishes don't need to be respected since nobody hacked their corporate network and stole secret financial data that was released to the public. How badly or well a product sells is not harmful in any way to a company, only "harmful" to people who would hide such information in order to fuck over their employees.
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