Valve: no Steam data for digital sales charts
Jason Holtman says "idea of a chart is old"
PC publisher Valve has confirmed that it won't be releasing its sales data from download service Steam to any digital chart tracking service.
Speaking in an interview with MCV, head of Steam Jason Holtman said that he felt that the data would be counterintuitive if released to the world at large, preferring to retain it for developers and publishers only.
"The idea of a chart is old," claims Holtman. It came from people trying to aggregate disaggregated information. What we provide to partners is much more rapid and perfected information."
Valve provides those who have games hosted on Steam with hourly updates of download figures in an attempt to keep them up to date with the precise effects of marketing pushes and offers. But releasing that data, in the form of monthly figures, to anybody else, would be a mistake, says Holtman.
"If you look back at the way retail charts have been made, they have been proven to be telling an inaccurate story. They apparently had shown how the PC format was dying when it was actually thriving."
Whilst the essence of that argument is surprisingly in harmony with the requests of sales trackers NPD and Chart-Track, which have both pledged to try and include digital sales in their figures, Valve reaches very different conclusions.
"The point is, it's not super important for a publisher or developer to know how well everyone is doing. What's important to know is exactly how your game is doing - why it's climbing and why it's falling. Your daily sales, your daily swing, your rewards for online campaign number three. That's what we provide."
Surely, by providing an argument justifying them not supplying figures that amounts to suggesting that 'such charts don't give an accurate picture of the PC gaming sector so we shouldn't do it', seems to be circular: supply the data and maybe we'll get a more accurate picture of the state of the PC gaming sector!
Knowledge is power - as the old adage goes...
@Alex Dawson: I really don't know what Kool Aid you're drinking. There's nothing altruistic or getting "at the man" in this. :)
Edited 1 times. Last edit by James Prendergast on 21st April 2011 2:41pm
I agree totally; his reasoning just doesn't follow.
If Valve don't want to release data, fine, that's their perogative, but don't justify it with b******t.
Doesn't that give them an unfair advantage? Given that Steam is the dominant digital distrubtion platform, and that the majority of PC games are probably now digitally distributed, isn't leveraging Steam to commercial advantage unfair?
Absolutely! That was my point. Steam has gotten to the point that they ARE a major player in gaming, not just for players, but also as a major retailer, making them a necessary evil for all developers.
They've become a standard install on new systems for gamers - I just built my kids both new machines just a few weeks ago - installed Windows updates, antivirus, anti-malware and Steam.
Keeping this information private really only benefits Valve doesn't it? Their "mind your own business" attitude just screams hypocrisy to me.
I guess Valve would say that they share the information with their partners so they're not being unfair. Although this doesn't change the fact that they have information pertaining to EVERY game sale, whereas their partners only get information specific to their own titles.
Even if it is unfair, I've yet to hear a decent argument for them to NOT release figures. How would the release of such information (even in the most generalized of forms) harm Valve? They don't have to release detailed information (trends, promotion-sale, conversion etc) just the hard numbers.
The only argument I can come up with as to WHY they won't release this data is because they play a HUGE role in the marketplace - a lot of people discount Steam as "insignificant" - releasing the full data would show just how vast their business is.
While Steam is pretty standard on gamers machines, there is a LOT of room for improvement with it. Their customer service is terrible, the connecting of all games to a single account can cause a multitude of problems and they have a laundry list of features I feel they lack or should improve on.
I guess I just think the reason to NOT release the data is fairly obvious - Steam is a business. If competitors knew just how many people actually did use Steam, they would face a decade of people trying to take their place. And truthfully, it wouldn't be that difficult.
Yesterday alone (past 24hrs), 3,080,627 played a game via Steam.
source: http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
Everybody already knows steam is big. They are or are becoming a monopoly. Why can't they provide publishers with up to date information and still provide entities like the NPD with monthly figures or so?
Investors need this information to gauge an overall best-case, worst-case, likely-case scenarios when they are considering investing in a new game by a new team. Without this information, they are blind.
Way to go, Steam.
Without this, developers either have to 1.) self-finance (e.g. eat pizza and work out of their apartments while they burn up their savings); 2.) sell the game to a large established game publisher; 3.) win the lottery.
Edited 2 times. Last edit by Tim Carter on 21st April 2011 7:28pm
While it may be a short term gain for Valve with a few hand picked games they could develop (or privately invest in), the loss of overall revenue from a plethora of gaming titles would surely be counter productive long term.
I guess I just don't understand this move by them.
That's the beauty of this industry right now though...Steam is FAR from perfect and it will most certainly be improved upon by some savvy developer. It has an impressive base to build from, but the areas it could be improved upon are bountiful. Kinda reminds me of myspace and how quickly that died when facebook was launched.
Why blame valve here? Let the developer decide what to do with the figures Valve gives them.
I don't think anyone is blaming Valve here, merely trying to understand why they're refusing to give figures.
As to your suggestion that individual developers could make the data they receive from Valve public, I'd say absolutely. However, it would be far more efficient for Valve to do it instead, as the platform holder.
The real reason for not disclosing numbers which oftentimes dwarf those of retail stores, even with big hits: Valve doesn't want to get the retailers unite against them with a similar offer of their own, starting an enormous price war.
I am curious however why no other company has started a service that would take on Steam. They've been king of the hill for how long now, seven years?
Like someone said above, knowledge is power, but at the same time blowing your own trumpet only makes you look like a dick. That's my 2 pence anyhow :p
Not sure I aggree with it but if this approach were taken on industry wide, it might help reduce the habit of the press writing off DOA (dead on arrival) new releases, which in turn would derease the probablility of these titles undeservedly dropping right off the gaming horizon within weeks or even days.
These DOA games have often taken years and millions of dollars to develop and more importantly, some of them are not bad games.
]http://twotribes.com/message/rush-sales-...[/link]
And for Investing I completely agree with Tim.
As a start up video game development company looking for funding from investors, and gearing our game towards Steam, not having stats is very inconvenient. Without concrete sales stats of that distribution channel and companies associated with them not allowed to release any sales data, its very risky starting a company based on no sales data. I have come up with very realistic sales forecasts for my company based on experience and lots and lots of research and cross referencing, but I can't be positive that my calculations are correct and its really very scary diving into a industry with no data to drive your financial forecasts for your own company and to impress investors.
I do respect their decision to keep their financials private, which our company will do as well. But geez, help your potential game developers out!
Edited 4 times. Last edit by Andrea Phaneuf on 22nd April 2011 6:27pm
The developers and publishers receive their detailed information about how their games are doing on Steam anyway and on top of that on a much more granular level than NPD or other charts trackers can deliver.