It turns out that news of SteamSpy‘s demise has been exaggerated. SteamSpy was one of the most widely-referenced analytic tools for Steam ever since it was created back in 2015 by Sergey Galyonkin. Valve recently changed its privacy policy on Steam, which meant that SteamSpy could no longer operate like it used to due to Steam making every user’s gaming library hidden by default.
In a recent blog post, Galyonkin confirms that SteamSpy is indeed back in business. He also clarified that the site was never shut down in the first place, only that its “old algorithm stopped working” and that he has been “busy creating a new one.”
He revealed that a proposal was sent to Steam so that SteamSpy could be given permission to keep its old algorithm running despite the new privacy policy changes. The only reply from Valve was a simple confirmation that the company received Galyonkin’s letter and nothing else.
Galyonkin also explained the reason why he is going to keep the SteamSpy service running, despite the complications. He said: “…I received over two hundred emails and messages from developers telling me how SteamSpy improved their lives. There was an indie company from Berlin that managed to secure financing from the government for their niche title because they had the data to prove that this niche is big enough. The title got released and succeeded.”
Unfortunately, the new algorithm developed by Galyonkin isn’t as accurate as the previous version. He said: “Many features of the site are still unavailable, but most of them will be coming back. I will keep on iterating the new algorithm while slowly bringing back the core functions of SteamSpy. It will take some time and it’s still possible that Valve will make another move to shut down the service, but until that happens, SteamSpy will continue to operate.”
That’s all great news for gamers, gaming journalists, and developers who have grown to rely on the SteamSpy service for work purposes and more. On the other hand, Valve’s new privacy policy settings could be considered a consumer-friendly move in protecting the data of users from being easily exposed, especially in light of Facebook’s recent controversial scandals.
