Valve is updating the system that shows game developers statistics about who is visiting their Steam page. As part of that update, Steam will no longer support Google Analytics, the most-used tool for tracking internet traffic, and developers relying on Google Analytics will instead use Steam’s built-in traffic reporting tool. must be used.
“Over time, we’ve realized that Google’s tracking solutions don’t mesh well with our approach to customer privacy,” said Valve. blog post (opens in new tab). Google Analytics support will end on July 1st. This is also the time when Google will decommission its old system called Universal Analytics and replace it with a new service called Google Analytics 4.
Instead of supporting Google Analytics 4, Valve says it’s focused on improving its own Steam traffic reporting tool. For example, we’ve introduced a regional breakdown of where your Steam pages are being accessed from, which is “what languages your game might support, or where servers for multiplayer games should be located. It helps a lot when considering.” This is something that was previously possible with Google Analytics.
Some data says Valve will continue no It tracks demographics such as “age, gender, race”. Additionally, when the volume of traffic from an external source falls below a certain threshold, we classify that source as “Other” to prevent inadvertently conveying information that could reveal a visitor’s identity.
“All tools and features discussed here are built with player privacy in mind. Steam will no longer share personally identifiable information,” Valve wrote. “This approach to privacy means that some trade-offs were made along the way to limit the specificity of some reports.”
Valve’s Privacy Policy has not changed (can be changed) read here (opens in new tab)), so deprecating Google Analytics is an obvious effort to better adhere to its own rules. Valve isn’t specific about what Google Analytics isn’t “in line” with its own privacy approach, or whether it’s motivated by the switch to Google Analytics 4, or just a good opportunity to split up. did not speak. I asked Google if they had a response to Valve’s remarks.
