Nexus mods? you mean the same site that paywalls downloading mods in bulk, and account walls downloading files to require sign in? And has already been proven to remove free features if they think it can be a decent perk for the sub model, the same site that deactivates accounts after a few months of no activity, the one with literal ads in their first party software and the only way to get around it is to pay a monthly subscription. That is the site you plan to keep your "always free, no paywall" product on.

Yea OK, I love the ambition but I will believe that when I see it. I expect SteamDB will be locked behind a paywall a few years from now at the latest.

Also if I find it amusing that if you look at the FAQ's on it... they are straightforward and say they plan to make money off of it.

edit: Upon looking it up again, I misremembered the third party situation. They rate limit third party, if detected, so I removed that complaint.

“We’re making the service more expensive to run in order to justify the incoming enshittification”

Yeah, thanks Nexusmods, that’s exactly what we need right now

Enshittification again?

RIP SteamDB

2013-2026

And so it begins, the beginning of the end.

On the upside, someone will probably scrape the data and copy it now, if we're all wise enough to groan wearily at this news reflexively.

So, y'know. On to the next thing, eventually, whenever that comes along.

Say sike right now

Ahhhhhh shit

Another one bites the dust

Big oof

Oh no

o7

"joins" how exactly? They've been eaten.

Lots of understandable doom and gloom in the comments, but from the FAQ it really does not seem like the current iteration we know today will be super different down the line. Yes, yes, take Nexus Mods' word with a mountain of salt, but it really does seem to be helping Nexus Mods' backend more, and having affiliate links seems to be the least intrusive method to make the site money. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.

RIP SteamDB, prepare for the enshittification

From their FAQ: https://steamdb.info/faq/?guildid=215154001799413770

What are you going to do with it?

Short term: nothing you'll notice. SteamDB keeps running exactly as it does today. Same site, same features, same data, same URL, still free.

Then we invest. SteamDB goes from essentially a one-person operation to a cross-functional team with modern infrastructure, security and scalability. That means long-standing backlog items actually shipping, more robust infrastructure, and less "everything depends on one person not burning out."

We will also be connecting SteamDB's data to modding tools and modding metadata so a mod manager can know which build of a game you're running, warn you before an update breaks your setup, and make things like collections/mod lists install significantly more reliably.

Are you going to commercialise it?

We're going to be straight about this rather than dance around it: yes, SteamDB needs to make money. What xPaw has built - and kept running largely through personal dedication and community donations - is an extraordinary achievement. Giving it the team, infrastructure and long-term investment it deserves is how we protect that work and ensure SteamDB can thrive for the next decade and beyond.

That said, we want to be smart about it, and it’s very important that we don’t degrade SteamDB from the amazing resource it is today. While we could simply put ads on the website, we don’t think that’s the right approach here. So we’ll be looking at other, lighter-touch ways to make the website sustainable. This may include use of partnerships, integrations, and affiliate links with publishers when you buy a game after visiting SteamDB. These are harder to do, take longer to set up, and may not show the benefits immediately, but we’re happy to take that hit in the interest of doing things right.

Here's what it does not mean: no paywall on anything that exists today, no selling your personal data, no login walls, no degrading the site to squeeze value out of it. Enshittification is when an owner extracts value while the product gets worse. Our plan is the opposite direction: put money and people in so the product gets better. Judge us on what we ship.

What a massive loss. Rest in peace, SteamDB.

RIP. Where do we go next? I can probably stand up a mirror pretty quickly

RIP. Did anyone get a copy?

So, I only ever used it for price history of games. Is there a different site that can look that up?