Valve: We Will Not Provide Data For Digital Sales Charts

Valve has said that it will not hand over data for a digital sales tracking chart, insisting that "it's not important" for developers to know how competitors are doing. The company provides its Steam developers with on-the-hour sales tracking, and believes that it would be a backwards step to release this data for a tracking chart. Talking to UK-based news site MCV, director of business development at Valve Jason Holtman said, "The idea of a chart is old. It came from people trying to aggregate disaggregated information. What we provide to partners is much more rapid and perfected information." Holtman used the retail sales charts as an example. "If you look back at the way retail charts have been made," he said, "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." Although having a detailed digital sales chart would provide the bigger picture with reduced discrepancies, Holtman is not convinced it is necessary. "The point is, it’s not super important for a publisher or developer to know how well everyone is doing," he argued. "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."