We've often cited SteamSpy as the statistics it fetched from Steam were very helpful for everyone in the industry. Unfortunately, that's coming to an end now as Valve has rolled out changes to privacy settings.
Today’s update expands on your Profile Privacy Settings Page, giving you more control over the privacy of your Steam account. With more detailed descriptions of what profile information is included in each category, you will be able to manage how you are viewed by your friends, or the wider Steam Community.
You can now select who can view your profile’s “game details”; which includes the list of games you have purchased or wishlisted, along with achievements and playtime. This setting also controls whether you’re seen as “in-game” and the title of the game you are playing.
Additionally, regardless of which setting you choose for your profile’s game details, you now have the option to keep your total game playtime private. You no longer need to nervously laugh it off as a bug when your friends notice the 4,000+ hours you've put into Ricochet.
Looking ahead a little, we are also working on a new “invisible” mode in addition to the already existing “online”, “away” and “offline” presence options. If you choose to set yourself to invisible, you’ll appear as offline, but you’ll still be able to view your friends list, send and receive messages. Sometimes you’re feeling social, and sometimes you’re not; this setting should help Steam users be social on their own terms. We hope to have this feature ready for beta release soon.
Like many Steam features, these privacy options come directly from user feedback. If you would like to join that conversation, as always, we welcome you to visit the Steam Discussions and add your feedback.
What the blog post doesn't explicitly say, according to SteamSpy creator Sergey Galyonkin, is that Valve now made every user's gaming library hidden by default - which prevents SteamSpy from working altogether.
To reiterate - it's not because of the new privacy settings. It's because Steam just made everyone's gaming library hidden by default (this wasn't in their blog post).
— Steam Spy (@Steam_Spy) April 11, 2018
On Twitter, Galyonkin also suggested that if Valve really wanted to protect their users' privacy they would have hidden the profiles' information first and foremost, but that's still public for now.
why is your personal information is still available to everyone and only games are hidden? Aren't the name is more important? 🙂
— Steam Spy (@Steam_Spy) April 11, 2018
all I am saying is they hiding the least important information from a user's standpoint, while leaving sensitive information available by default.
— Steam Spy (@Steam_Spy) April 11, 2018
What do you think about this policy change by Valve? Let us know in the comments section.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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