Valve has made a number of changes to Steam’s privacy settings which may reduce the total data available regarding the time that the public spends with particular games. Valve detailed the full list of changes in a blog post, but it seems like Valve left out some important features.
First of all, players will now be able to select who can see details about the games that the player has invested time in. Additionally, players can keep some specific information such as playtime private even as other details of the game may be visible. However, the big change is that a player’s game library is no longer public by default. Steam Spy is a site that helped in bringing out various statistics regarding how gamers approach video games through Steam. Now that the game library will no longer be public by default, Steam Spy will not be functional any longer.
Furthermore, Valve is also working on other changes such as an ‘invisible’ mode where players can still see who is online while being offline themselves, and in this way enables them to be “social on their own terms.” Do you think this added privacy is worth gaining over lots of useful statistics and data? Let us know in the comments.