Is this site affiliated with Steam or Valve Software in any way?
Absolutely not. It is run by Level Up Labs, LLC, mostly through me, Lars Doucet. None of these are currently employed by Valve Software nor do they speak for Valve in any way.
Didn't Lars used to work for Valve?
Yes, I (Lars) am a former Valve contractor who worked on the
Steam Labs initiative. However, I don't work for them any more and neither Level Up Labs nor GameDataCrunch is affiliated with them.
GameDataCrunch does not use any of Valve's proprietary information in any way, nor do I at present have any access to any of Valve's non-public information.
Besides, when I was a contractor I wasn't ever able to look up sales stats for individual games or anything, I was given limited access just to the features I was working on. The most notable projects I worked on at Valve were
Deep Dive,
Query Expansion, and the
Tag Wizard. Any GameDataCrunch features that resemble projects I worked on at Valve have been written from scratch without any of Valve's resources. The only data I use from Steam is data that everyone can see.
Can I hire you or license GameDataCrunch?
Maybe! Let's talk: Lars dot doucet at gmail dot com
I'm a researcher, can I look at some of your data?
I'd be delighted. Let's talk: Lars dot doucet at gmail dot com
Can I use this site to look up sales figures for games?
No, but you can use it to look up performance metrics that probably correlate with them. See the
methodology section for more details.
How can I get updates when new features are released?
Use the newsletter sign up form at the top of this website.
What do all the symbols and metrics mean?
See the
"Meet the Metrics" section of the methodology page for more details.
How reliable are the stats?
Very reliable, aside from the occasional bug. That's because I'm not doing statistical estimates here, I'm just gathering and reporting facts directly.
How can I estimate sales and revenue from your stats?
That's the million dollar question, isn't it? I don't have a concrete answer; my main goal right now is just to provide all the public data I can find and situatate it in the most relevant context; hopefully data scientists and researchers will be able to work out what conclusions are and aren't possible to make from them.
What platforms do you support?
Currently we only track Steam games. We'll be tracking more soon (including consoles).
Will you ever support mobile?
Mobile is pretty well covered by other services. So probably not.
How often does the site update?
Once per day, around midnight Greenwich mean time.
Why don't the tags on your site always match Steam's?
I use Steam as a baseline source and then apply some adjustments. For one, all tag profiles on GameDataCrunch are
query expanded (if a game has "2D" and "Platformer" on Steam, it will always have "2D Platformer" on GameDataCrunch). I plan on reconciling tags with store categories and mature content fields, introducing new tags of my own, and after that applying some manual adjustments to various games throughout the catalog.
What metrics do you track?
A lot. See the
"Meet the Metrics" section of the methodology page for more details.
Will you open source this site?
Parts of it at least. I'm working out which ones at the moment.
Will you publish an API?
Yes, when we hit version 1.0. Feel free to snoop AJAX requests until then, but don't hammer my site into oblivion, and beware that API endpoints may change at any moment until we hit version 1.0.
Under what terms can I use your data?
I gathered it from public sources, so it's only fair that I provide it under the same terms, so consider it public data free to use for all purposes. However, you should link back and credit this site, and not just because it's nice, but also to provide provenance for your stats. Also that way if the stats are dumb or broken or something folks can blame me instead of you.
Will you provide advanced features behind a login for paid subscribers?
Probalby yeah, eventually. Get in touch (lars dot doucet at gmail dot com) if you have specific feature requests.
Who do I report a bug or feature suggestion to?
Lars dot doucet at gmail dot com