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[F-Pina]

Steam spy is great because it is a very good step in showing that we really need official worldwide numbers available to everyone.

 

[kswiston]

It tends to have a +-10% hedger for our games no matter what, so it gets less accurate the more users you have.

+/- 10% wouldn't be less accurate at 100 million sales than it is at 100 sales. In fact, the numbers should be more accurate with more users.

Also, from what I have seen from dozens of devs over the past year or so, actual sales typically fall in or close to the margin of error stated, so being off by 10% on your games seems pretty high (unless they were small sellers. I know Steamspy isn't very good at the low end of things).


That said, I think that everyone realizes that this is counting Steam only (and steam users at that), so it is less useful for games that are multi platform if you want to get a the full picture. Look at Call of Duty. Black Ops 3 is sitting at 1.2M on Steam. Based on NPD and other data, it's safe to say that actual worldwide sales are well over 10x that.

 

[Moonstone]

Ok good point. Do you know a ballpark figure for what it would cost dev's to obrain these market figures? I may not be looking at it hard enough but wouldn't spending it on research that adds more than steam data be more useful? I have played many indie games and feel like market research was not that important to many of them but I am sure some do use it.

Also I hear steamspy is accurate. Do we know how accurate and if things like refunds are accounted for? I don't use steam a lot so not sure if it removes the game from your profile after a refund.

Regardless I like seeing the numbers , however I would think it was unfortunate if employees were ever affected by it.

Read his about page: http://steamspy.com/about

Regarding refunds:
https://twitter.com/Grief_exe/status/766663346204442625

 

[SomTervo]

I think it's because GOG and Xbox don't use Steam as their social/community service.

Naturally. Although I'm not sure if GoG games which are added as 'Non-Steam products' to Steam count. Surely they still pick up the game's exact title.

 

[F-Pina]

It tends to have a +-10% hedger for our games no matter what, so it gets less accurate the more users you have.

IIRC it also doesn't include GoG or (in our case) Xbox One, so it's not very accurate at all in terms of total through sales. At the moment for our game I think it only shows about half of total sales.

Yeap, same here with our only game on Steam.
Specially it seems that a lot of sales from our Humble Bundle sales last year are keys not activated yet.

 

[SomTervo]

+/- 10% wouldn't be less accurate at 100 million sales than it is at 100 sales. In fact, the numbers should be more accurate with more users.

Also, from what I have seen from dozens of devs over the past year or so, actual sales typically fall in or close to the margin of error stated, so being off by 10% on your games seems pretty high (unless they were small sellers. I know Steamspy isn't very good at the low end of things).

I didn't study informatics so I have no idea how this works in any great detail. Surely +/- 10% on 100 users would be a range of 90-110, while +/- 10% on 100 million would be a range of 90-110 million, which is way less accurate?

Also my +/- judgement is just based on looking at our game, it does vary. For instance when our game was at 40,000 users according to SteamSpy it said +/- 4,000 users. When we were at 60,000 users it said +/-5,850 users. Etc.

Agreed on everything else.

 

[Sini]

Naturally. Although I'm not sure if GoG games which are added as 'Non-Steam products' to Steam count. Surely they still pick up the game's exact title.

Steamspy works on player profiles that are accessible via internet, non-Steam game shortcuts that you manually add to Steam are local only. You can see if people are currently in non-Steam game, but it doesn't save on your profile in any way.

 

[Durante]

Yeap, same here with our only game on Steam.
Specially it seems that a lot of sales from our Humble Bundle sales last year are keys not activated yet.

That's interesting, and mirrors something I noticed on some games I was watching closely -- when they are included in bundles their owners stat often doesn't go up nearly as much as the bundle sales would indicate.

 

[Nirolak]

That's interesting, and mirrors something I noticed on some games I was watching closely -- when they are included in bundles their owners stat often doesn't go up nearly as much as the bundle sales would indicate.

I think something like 80-90% of my Humble Bundle keys are still unredeemed because it's kind of a hassle, so I only put them in when I intend to use them in the not too distant future.

 

[Chairmanchuck]

That's interesting, and mirrors something I noticed on some games I was watching closely -- when they are included in bundles their owners stat often doesn't go up nearly as much as the bundle sales would indicate.

Isnt that because some "companies" buy up Humble Bundles and Bundles in general in bulk and then try to sell them on shady key websites?

 

[SomTervo]

Steamspy works on player profiles that are accessible via internet, non-Steam game shortcuts that you manually add to Steam are local only. You can see if people are currently in non-Steam game, but it doesn't save on your profile in any way.

Good to know.

 

[charlequin]

From the first time a publisher wss removed this was basically what I said would happen: more and more requests on flimsier pretexts from nuisance pubs, until the service started seriously suffering in utility. Glad that's been nipped in the bud, thumbs up.

 

[Htown]

There is no reason that video game sales should be such a closely guarded secret. Why are you trying to hide sales numbers? What possible legitimate purpose could you have for not wanting people to know how many copies your game sold?

I can't think of one that doesn't involve trying to be deceptive in order to trick someone into signing a contract or investing money.

 

[kswiston]

I think something like 80-90% of my Humble Bundle keys are still unredeemed because it's kind of a hassle, so I only put them in when I intend to use them in the not too distant future.

Same with me. Even games I 100% plan on playing sit unused until I feel like installing the game. If you don't own most of the games in the bundle, Humble Bundle prices tend to be lower than the best Steam prices for months (if not years), so it can be worth jumping on games you plan on playing down the road.


That doesn't even get into games I don't want that are lumped in bundles with games I want. Those can sit unused for a year or so until I start clearing them out via giveaways, trades, etc.

I didn't study informatics so I have no idea how this works in any great detail. Surely +/- 10% on 100 users would be a range of 90-110, while +/- 10% on 100 million would be a range of 90-110 million, which is way less accurate?

Also my +/- judgement is just based on looking at our game, it does vary. For instance when our game was at 40,000 users according to SteamSpy it said +/- 4,000 users. When we were at 60,000 users it said +/-5,850 users. Etc.

Agreed on everything else.

Accuracy is just a percentage deviation from the actual number. If you were a billionaire worth $10B, and I estimated your net worth at $9.75B, I would be giving a much more accurate estimate than I would be a case where I estimated your $100k net worth at $70k. It doesn't matter that I was off by $250M in the first case and only $30k in the second, because that $30k is much more important to a $100k total than a $10B total. So, 10% is 10% regardless of what it is 10% off.

With sampled data, larger samples tend to be more accurate than small samples. That's why something like Trails in the Sky SC is sitting at 22,458 ± 3,819 (+/- 17%) on Steamspy, while Undertale is sitting at 1,859,055 ± 34,655 (+/- 1.8%). It's the same methodology, but with around 20k instances to worth with, private profiles and other factors will affect the derived user total more than it would a million seller. For very low sales (say <10k), Steamspy is widely innaccurate outside of a "That game didn't sell" perspective. If some of your games are under 50k, I guess +/- 10% is reasonable.

 

[Instro]

Nice to see a stand being taken here.

 

[Micael]

Considering that the data doesn't belong to the publishers or developers, I see absolutely 0 reason for him to comply if he doesn't want to, the information is not gathered from anything that the publishers/devs have rights to, at best valve could complain about it because it is mined from the users of their service.

I also see it to the benefit of the industry in general to have better transparency on the numbers, I mean less than 1 decade ago we had the media push the PC is dead agenda bullshit, which was a total fabrication since PC devs were actually doing pretty well (not so much console devs), and this is the sort of data that is needed to quell this, or even to help publish future games based on other games, when publishers simply go with their gut and decide the future of the industry simply based on assumptions with no basis on real life (BF1, and MW being stark examples of publisher ignorance, being that they thought there was no market for them with obviously no basis on facts).
Now both developers and the general public can point to actual numbers and get a far better idea even if it is not perfect, which surely can only help gaming in general.

Not even going to go into how publishers and this industry in general seems to think it should have rights that other industries don't, despite it being the leading entertainment industry with massive growth each year.

 

[galyonkin]

Hi

Steam Spy guy here

Here is what I wrote to Polygon. Will be happy to answer your questions during the weekend - it's a bit busy right now in the office.

I have a huge respect for Techland, and I love Dying Light. They're doing amazing work in game development, proving that a small company from Eastern Europe can become a big and respected game developer through hard work and dedication.

I want other developers to be able to learn from Techland and follow in their steps. Removing Paradox was already a hard decision for me for the same reasons. Nobody is going to miss Bad Rats on Steam Spy - there is nothing useful to learn from it. But both Paradox and Techland are doing a spectacular job with their games, and I'd hate people to lose this valuable lesson.

The point of Steam Spy is to be a helpful tool for game developers. Removing several important independent games from the service will hurt everyone else while not necessarily benefitting the publishers of the removed games.

I've talked several times about Steam Spy's limitations. For once, it's not a "sales tracking service" it's merely a polling service, that estimates the number of owners by polling user profiles. It's a bit like an election survey.

Imagine if Trump would ask everyone to stop publishing polls because they make him look bad and diminish his negotiating power. And honestly, if you believe your bargaining power lies in the ability to lie about your games data, you don't understand negotiations.

So, while I would like to avoid being sued by publishers for estimating the number of their games owners, I don't believe they have a case here.

 

[larsiusprime]

Here's some stuff I posted on the reddit thread for context about this whole situation:

Nit: SteamSpy generally IS accurate. It's just not PRECISE.[1]

The numbers it quotes, in almost all cases, are within its stated margin of error (+ or - so many units) for the numbers it actually claims to measure (# of OWNERS -- not purchasers -- of a given game on steam).

The confusion comes from several places :

1) It needs 3 days of data before it has any validity and some people want to know on day 1, which is impossible
2) People want to know the exact # but all it has is an estimate with a margin of error
3) People don't understand the difference between owners and purchasers
4) People mistakenly assume all purchases -- itself an unknown number -- were made at full price.

See also: http://steamspy.com/about

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_and_precision

EDIT: And to be sure, the above is kind of a lot to task of the general public. It's really easy to jump to wrong conclusions without reading his methodology on the about page in detail.

As a follow-up, here's a concrete example where people can totally misunderstand the data, which shows why a dev/pub might be nervous about SteamSpy, despite it being accurate (but not precise).

Two games on SteamSpy show these stats:

Game A: 10K owners
Game B: 100K owners

Behind the scenes:

Game A: 10K copies sold @ $30 (full price): $300K
Game B: 100K copies from bundles @ $0.30 each: $30K

Compare:

Perception: B = 10XA
Truth: A = 10XB

The difference between Truth and Perception here is a full 100X!

Here the confusion has nothing to do whether SteamSpy is accurate/precise, but in properly interpreting what X number of owners actually means.

(feel free to correct me if wrong, Sergey)

 

[hemo memo]

I'm all for this knowledge to be public.

This.

 

[mfaex]

Nobody is going to miss Bad Rats on Steam Spy

I suspect most of us don't share that sentiment!

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

I think its a neat data resource, but it also inspires a lot of dangerously misinformed analysis from people who don't understand the data, and are unable to place the data into a historical context. From the dude who runs it as much as anyone else.

There was the whole "Indiepocalypse" nonsense, which was largely unfounded scaremongering, and people not really understanding how the long tail works with critically acclaimed indie games, especially in relation to bundles and discounts.

It's cool to be able to see this data, although obviously everyone should be mindful of the significant margin for error, but I wouldn't personally feel I was missing out massively if it went away.

I imagine Valve will add a button for devs to toggle opt in/opt out, and say that they are not going to have anything to do with moderating this stuff in a hands on manner. Will require a bit of work but it's probably the easiest solution for them.

Edit: There are countless business reasons for not wanting sales data to be public. You can debate the merit of these reasons, but I doubt it's something Valve would want to take a hard line against publishers who make them lots of money just because of a not especially convincing public interest argument.

There was some post back during the Summer Sale here that pointed out how much of the digital data was vague enough pre-Spy to float bullshit like "it was grandparent's computers downloaded once and set to be start up!" "Everyone was on the PSN/XBox sale!" and other uncallable claptrap.

This is scads better. The new normal NPDs should be more than enough backup to that.

Hi

Steam Spy guy here

Here is what I wrote to Polygon. Will be happy to answer your questions during the weekend - it's a bit busy right now in the office.

I have a huge respect for Techland, and I love Dying Light. They're doing amazing work in game development, proving that a small company from Eastern Europe can become a big and respected game developer through hard work and dedication.

I want other developers to be able to learn from Techland and follow in their steps. Removing Paradox was already a hard decision for me for the same reasons. Nobody is going to miss Bad Rats on Steam Spy - there is nothing useful to learn from it. But both Paradox and Techland are doing a spectacular job with their games, and I'd hate people to lose this valuable lesson.

The point of Steam Spy is to be a helpful tool for game developers. Removing several important independent games from the service will hurt everyone else while not necessarily benefitting the publishers of the removed games.

I've talked several times about Steam Spy's limitations. For once, it's not a "sales tracking service" it's merely a polling service, that estimates the number of owners by polling user profiles. It's a bit like an election survey.

Imagine if Trump would ask everyone to stop publishing polls because they make him look bad and diminish his negotiating power. And honestly, if you believe your bargaining power lies in the ability to lie about your games data, you don't understand negotiations.

So, while I would like to avoid being sued by publishers for estimating the number of their games owners, I don't believe they have a case here.

Stay safe man.

 

[Micael]

There was some post back during the Summer Sale here that pointed out how much of the digital data was vague enough pre-Spy to float bullshit like "it was grandparent's computers downloaded once and set to be start up!" "Everyone was on the PSN/XBox sale!" and other uncallable claptrap.

Yaps the people that would seriously misinterpret this data are unlikely to be making better calls had they no access to data, and adding to those examples we have the much more serious "PC gaming is dying", which was coming from the media, so taken far more seriously.

 

[Vincent Grayson]

Information wants to be free. Deal with it.

 

[Raist]

I'm not quite sure I understand. The site is collecting the info from Steam Users' Profiles. It's basically public information to begin with. I don't think devs/publishers have any say.

 

[JaseC]

I'm not quite sure I understand. The site is collecting the info from Steam Users' Profiles. It's basically public information to begin with. I don't think devs/publishers have any say.

Correct, however up until today he obliged takedown requests as this dissuaded the publishers from taking their grievances to Valve in an effort to cut the website off from its source entirely.

 

[chillybright]

Hi

Steam Spy guy here

Here is what I wrote to Polygon. Will be happy to answer your questions during the weekend - it's a bit busy right now in the office.

I have a huge respect for Techland, and I love Dying Light. They're doing amazing work in game development, proving that a small company from Eastern Europe can become a big and respected game developer through hard work and dedication.

I want other developers to be able to learn from Techland and follow in their steps. Removing Paradox was already a hard decision for me for the same reasons. Nobody is going to miss Bad Rats on Steam Spy - there is nothing useful to learn from it. But both Paradox and Techland are doing a spectacular job with their games, and I'd hate people to lose this valuable lesson.

The point of Steam Spy is to be a helpful tool for game developers. Removing several important independent games from the service will hurt everyone else while not necessarily benefitting the publishers of the removed games.

I've talked several times about Steam Spy's limitations. For once, it's not a "sales tracking service" it's merely a polling service, that estimates the number of owners by polling user profiles. It's a bit like an election survey.

Imagine if Trump would ask everyone to stop publishing polls because they make him look bad and diminish his negotiating power. And honestly, if you believe your bargaining power lies in the ability to lie about your games data, you don't understand negotiations.

So, while I would like to avoid being sued by publishers for estimating the number of their games owners, I don't believe they have a case here.

Keep up the good work!

 

[kswiston]

Correct, however up until today he obliged takedown requests as this dissuaded the publishers from taking their grievances to Valve in an effort to cut the website off from its source entirely.

Someone else would just pick up where Sergey left off, even if it's not an online database that anyone is free to query at any time. Ars Technica was already doing this a year before Steamspy went live.

I don't see any value in Valve trying to block Steamspy, and it doesn't seem like any of the major publishers that could actually push that decision care. Valve themselves doesn't care that their own numbers are out there either.

 

[hemo memo]

Someone else would just pick up where Sergey left off, even if it's not an online database that anyone is free to query at any time. Ars Technica was already doing this a year before Steamspy went live.

I don't see any value in Valve trying to block Steamspy, and it doesn't seem like any of the major publishers that could actually push that decision care. Valve themselves doesn't care that their own numbers are out there either.

Yeah. If they removed their games from the service Valve might but good that big puplishers don't care.

 

[Pantaghana]

This is publicly available information, while publishers and developers may ask for their numbers to be hidden, there is no obligation to comply, and I see no legal avenue for them pursue if they want to go that route.

 

[JaseC]

Someone else would just pick up where Sergey left off, even if it's not an online database that anyone is free to query at any time. Ars Technica was already doing this a year before Steamspy went live.

SteamSpy being cut off doesn't necessarily mean a blacklisting/C&D, and I'd wager publishers weren't bothered by AT's articles since they were a periodical thing and whose comparatively limited insight focused squarely on the big numbers.

I don't see any value in Valve trying to block Steamspy, and it doesn't seem like any of the major publishers that could actually push that decision care. Valve themselves doesn't care that their own numbers are out there either.

I expect Valve to do something if enough noise is made. That is why the AllowCrossRegionTradingAndGifting flag was introduced, after all -- it was originally optional and not applied to Valve's own subs. (To be clear, publishers could already region-lock games; the flag merely removed the general need for region-specific subs.) I'd also posit that Family Sharing's lack of concurrent game access is due to publisher feedback as I doubt Valve set out to design a game sharing feature that is more restrictive than its console counterparts.

 

[Hellshy.]

Read his about page: http://steamspy.com/about

Regarding refunds:
https://twitter.com/Grief_exe/status/766663346204442625

Appreciate the links . Will read after work.

 

[Reallink]

Steamspy is worthless if the majority of publishers start requesting hidden data, which is clearly the way things are going. Best course is absolutely to tell them to fuck off and expose it all. If Valve wants to burn it to the ground on the back of publishers whining, that the same place it'll be otherwise with everyone opted out.

 

[EvB]

This may have already been said but, Techland are a polish company and CDPR recently got into legal hot water by speaking about their own sales figures.

Is it not unreasonable to think that Techland could be trying to protect themselves?

 

[Micael]

Yeah. If they removed their games from the service Valve might but good that big puplishers don't care.

Also it is kind of an empty threat, "Oh if you don't make a way for this other website that isn't directly related to you to stop working, we are going to forego what is by extremely far the biggest PC distribution channel, so you will have to do without our money and content". Valve is almost certainly bigger than any publisher out there, maybe one could argue that Activision is of similar size but considering they don't even put blizzard games in there, yeah.
EA also has origin and doesn't put much stuff there, ubisoft also have uplay, really short of some massive movement from a big collective of publishers, threats would do little, I mean I seriously doubt most publishers wanted refunds, yet they are here.

 

[JaseC]

This may have already been said but, Techland are a polish company and CDPR recently got into legal hot water by speaking about their own sales figures.

Is it not unreasonable to think that Techland could be trying to protect themselves?

I doubt it. CDP got into trouble as it didn't follow protocol when divulging its sales figures, not because of third-party estimates, plus CDPR's games were never hidden. As Nirolak said, Techland likely had a change of heart due to it becoming a publishing partner for external developers.

 

[Real_Madrid]

Hi

Steam Spy guy here

Here is what I wrote to Polygon. Will be happy to answer your questions during the weekend - it's a bit busy right now in the office.

I have a huge respect for Techland, and I love Dying Light. They're doing amazing work in game development, proving that a small company from Eastern Europe can become a big and respected game developer through hard work and dedication.

I want other developers to be able to learn from Techland and follow in their steps. Removing Paradox was already a hard decision for me for the same reasons. Nobody is going to miss Bad Rats on Steam Spy - there is nothing useful to learn from it. But both Paradox and Techland are doing a spectacular job with their games, and I'd hate people to lose this valuable lesson.

The point of Steam Spy is to be a helpful tool for game developers. Removing several important independent games from the service will hurt everyone else while not necessarily benefitting the publishers of the removed games.

I've talked several times about Steam Spy's limitations. For once, it's not a "sales tracking service" it's merely a polling service, that estimates the number of owners by polling user profiles. It's a bit like an election survey.

Imagine if Trump would ask everyone to stop publishing polls because they make him look bad and diminish his negotiating power. And honestly, if you believe your bargaining power lies in the ability to lie about your games data, you don't understand negotiations.

So, while I would like to avoid being sued by publishers for estimating the number of their games owners, I don't believe they have a case here.

Sounds cool, but I don't think that developers need Steamspy to know what games sold good on Steam or what games are popular.

And the Trump analogy is also very weird. I have given the example about Party Hard and it jumping from +- 50.000 to +- 150.000 because of a very cheap bundle. So, how could someone use such a number in negotiations or as a measurement for popularity? Being in a few very cheap bundles is probably enough for most games to have a high owner rate.
Also you suggest that publishers want their games taken of your site because they then can 'lie' about the sales data for a takeover or whatever. Maybe there is a case of that known, but to me it seems very far fetched and also very illegal.

 

[Chobel]

Sounds cool, but I don't think that developers need Steamspy to know what games sold good on Steam or what games are popular.

And the Trump analogy is also very weird. I have given the example about Party Hard and it jumping from +- 50.000 to +- 150.000 because of a very cheap bundle. So, how could someone use such a number in negotiations or as a measurement for popularity? Being in a few very cheap bundles is probably enough for most games to have a high owner rate.
Also you suggest that publishers want their games taken of your site because they then can 'lie' about the sales data for a takeover or whatever. Maybe there is a case of that known, but to me it seems very far fetched and also very illegal.

If only it was as simple as that. There's a lot between Mega hit game and absolute bomba game.

 

[tearsintherain]

Good for him, its a choice he would eventually have had to make and I'm glad he sided on the side of open information. Since its all pulled from public data available to everyone, publishers have no legal standing.

I'm honestly surprised there isn't anything like this for PSN/Xbox Live, I guess there isn't any method to scrape every single user and see all the games they own?

 

[CosmicQueso]

Sounds cool, but I don't think that developers need Steamspy to know what games sold good on Steam or what games are popular.

You actually could not be more wrong here, sorry to say.

Benchmarking is critical in developing revenue forecasts, and, as an extension, development budgets.

The lack of information regarding the digital space has a huge negative impact on these essential business processes.

 

[LordBaztion]

So, if Steamspy is just an aggregator, then Techland should be asking Steam to remove their information.

 

[Mass_Pincup]

Sounds cool, but I don't think that developers need Steamspy to know what games sold good on Steam or what games are popular.

Maybe not but I'm sure it's the easiest and least expensive way for them to do it which is important for smaller developers.

 

[NoPiece]

Sounds cool, but I don't think that developers need Steamspy to know what games sold good on Steam or what games are popular.

Sure, but what about games that aren't popular, which is most of them. If I want to do a hidden object game and want to have a sense of what they sell so I can budget, then SteamSpy is incredibly useful, and teh only source for that kind of data.

 

[Real_Madrid]

You actually could not be more wrong here, sorry to say.

Benchmarking is critical in developing revenue forecasts, and, as an extension, development budgets.

The lack of information regarding the digital space has a huge negative impact on these essential business processes.

But you only quoted my first sentence. I explained why in the next ones, with an example and numbers.

 

[Great Rumbler]

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.

How do you feel about NPD? Media Create? How is what they do any different?

 

[CosmicQueso]

But you only quoted my first sentence. I explained why in the next ones, with an example and numbers.

Because the next part assumes that people using these figures will do so in a vacuum, and not take into account factors that drove certain sales figures.

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.

A developer usually presents their internal sales figures for games it has developed in negotiations. The only way this information would hurt developer bargaining positions would be if the developer could not back up the information presented or the developer was trying to manipulate or hide data inappropriately.

 

[Chobel]

But you only quoted my first sentence. I explained why in the next ones, with an example and numbers.

You would the see the jump in Steamspy, One day it's 50K and in the next 2 days it's 150K. That should give you a hint that something happened in that interval.

 

[Paz]

Sounds cool, but I don't think that developers need Steamspy to know what games sold good on Steam or what games are popular.

You don't need it for a general view of games that dominate steam, but my word it is INCREDIBLY useful. I know indie developers who make crucial decisions based partially on Steamspy data, it really helps you when performing market analysis for different niches and styles of games.

Personally it's not so useful for my reasoning when making decisions but that's because I'm a bad businessman, I still love to peruse it and get an understanding for where the market is at (There is really no better source regardless of its inaccuracies).

 

[Z3M0G]

Squad (Kerbal Space Program): Paid their staff nigh zero wages, frequently fired them, game had sold 1.5 million copies at a high ASP. Their request was done under the cover of asserting that Mexican drug cartels would murder all their staff if their data was on SteamSpy because a drug cartel that was sophisticated enough to use SteamSpy wouldn't be able to figure out Kerbal Space Program was a success otherwise.

Can someone explain this one to me?

Fuck the publishers, but if a Dev asked, I would consider it... but I really don't understand the above for some reason.

 

[NoPiece]

Can someone explain this one to me?

Fuck the publishers, but if a Dev asked, I would consider it... but I really don't understand the above for some reason.

They live in a high crime country. They feel that if the amount of money they are making is public knowledge, it makes them targets for crime (kidnapping for ransom is fairly common).

 

[Jotaka]

Imagine if Trump would ask everyone to stop publishing polls because they make him look bad and diminish his negotiating power. And honestly, if you believe your bargaining power lies in the ability to lie about your games data, you don't understand negotiations.

Do you have experience in this negotiations? I would love to see your resume.

A developer usually presents their internal sales figures for games it has developed in negotiations. The only way this information would hurt developer bargaining positions would be if the developer could not back up the information presented or the developer was trying to manipulate or hide data inappropriately.

So they use SteamSpy to back up their claim?