Games Industry: Stopping Steam Spy will Only Hurt Independent Developers
On April 11, the independent analytical service Steam Spy stopped receiving Steam user data because Valve hid this information from third-party eyes. The author of the Games Industry publication Christopher Dring believes that this decision will harm small and medium-sized gaming companies.
According to the journalist, interference with Steam Spy will deprive most independent developers of guidelines. Without the service data, it will be difficult for them to understand how well or poorly their game will perform on the market in comparison with existing titles.
Dring notes that Steam Spy data complemented the overall picture of the gaming market. They filled a gap in the part that specialized analytical companies usually do not take into account.
In Europe, the GfK and ISFE organizations are engaged in evaluating game sales, and the NPD Group company surveys the US video game market.
These companies receive sales data directly from developers and publishers. Since processing such a large amount of information requires a lot of resources, analytical companies work only with large gaming enterprises.
“The whole world already knows about the performance of Ubisoft, EA and Activision, but now we have lost information about the sales of games such as PUBG and other breakthrough projects created by the indie community,” said Christopher Dring.
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