The new method of counting game owners on Steam, which has already been adopted by the Steam Spy service, no longer works. This possibility was eliminated by Valve itself, said the author of the method, indie developer Tyler Glaiel.
Last week, Glayel published a post describing how the new code works to determine the number of purchases on Steam. The code was based on the analysis of open statistics of player achievements and allowed to obtain accurate data on the number of owners of the game. Glayel gave his code to the Steam Spy service.
Today, an update appeared under Glayel’s post. As it turned out, Valve started rounding the numbers in the statistics of the achievements received, so the method stopped working.
In fact, this means that Valve is not just “working” on its own analogue of Steam Spy, as a representative of the company announced at the White Nights conference. Valve wants its service to be uncontested.
Glayel also tweeted that Valve should have spoken openly about this, and not deprive Steam Spy of the opportunity to receive data under various pretexts.:
I’m not really surprised but it does kinda show that their GDPR excuse for killing off steamspy was just an excuse. and also their “steamspy wasn’t accurate enough” statement recently.
they should just be forward about it and stop making us guess what they will and wont allow
— Tyler Glaiel (@TylerGlaiel) July 4, 2018I’m not really surprised.
This shows that their excuse about GDPR was really just an excuse to kill SteamSpy. As well as their recent words that “SteamSpy was not accurate enough.” They should have been honest and not forced us to guess what they would allow us and what not.
Recall that in April SteamSpy lost the ability to display the number of game owners due to a change in privacy settings, which the Steam owners explained by the entry into force of the GDPR – the EU data protection regulation.
Also on the topic:
- Steam Spy has a list of developers and publishersThe future of Steam Spy is in doubt due to restrictions on access to Steam data
- A source: