Valve says that it has no intentions to cooperate with sales tracking firms like the NPD who have requested access to internal data from Valve's digital distribution service, Steam. Speaking to MCV UK, Steam's Jason Holtman said that sharing the data would be counterintuitive to its sales strategy and that the information was better reserved for developers and publishers, and not the public.
"The idea of a chart is old," said Holtman. "It came from people trying to aggregate disaggregated information. What we provide to partners is much more rapid and perfected information."
Valve provides its publishers and developers with hourly updates of download and sales figures, allowing those partners to measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and special offers in more accurate ways than any sales tracking firms can provide.
"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."
"The point is, it's not super important for a publisher or developer to know how well everyone is doing. What's important is to know how exactly 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."
