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SteamdDB Joins Nexus Mods

130 points by HelloUsername 14d ago

explodes 13d ago
Yea, the steamdb extension gets uninstalled now.
hurricanepootis 14d ago
So, looks like SteamDB is gonna get a billion features behind paywall. Probably gonna rate limit how many depots you can look up for free within the hour lol
- bjord 14d ago
  I think that's perfectly reasonable if it means a more sustainable future
  - giancarlostoro 14d ago
    Probably have ads because idk who would pay to lift those limits.
  - brink 14d ago
    Is it for a sustainable future, or just extracting maximum value from the user?
  - bakugo 14d ago
    Are you speaking purely out of principle, or do you truly believe it makes sense in this particular case? Personally, I just can't imagine anyone paying a monthly fee just to access metadata for Steam games and nothing else. At least with Nexus Mods, you're paying for (easier) access to actual content for your games.
    - Groxx 14d ago
      Probably speaking as someone who has used nexusmods in the past decade. Their monetization stuff is on the "lolwhat, that's kinda excessive" side of things.
      - Oxodao 13d ago
        I'm so thankful that Minecraft has developed it's own ecosystem for modding (I don't like CurseForge but it's MILES ahead of NM, and modrinth is great) and did not rely on NexusMods. Try to install a big modpack in TES, Fallout or Cyberpunk without actually paying for the API access, it's borderline insane.
    - bjord 12d ago
      I do believe it makes sense in this particular case. xPaw made it clear in his other half of the announcement that he's been burnt out for years, and a big portion of burnout is being asked to do things, whether you love them or not, for free. https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/ https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/
  - PunchyHamster 14d ago
    apparently it was sustainable just fine before
    - bjord 12d ago
      you should read the other half of the announcement in which the founder talked about the burnout he was experiencing https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/ https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/
  - account42 13d ago
    I disagree. The project dying would at least leave room for a successor, which an enshittified version might prevent.
haunter 14d ago
And the company behind Nexus: >We acquire. We amplify. We conquer. https://www.wearechosen.io/ https://www.wearechosen.io/ lmao good luck. Love how the guy was running the site alone becaue he couldn’t “trust anyone else” and ended up selling to a company like this. Though SteamDB is not irreplacebale at all, it’s running on the Steam Web API so not something super secret stuff.
- tencentshill 14d ago
  The fundamental function of the site can now be vibecoded in a day, so now has no value. The daily visitors are the only unused item of value remaining.
  - bjord 14d ago
    that's optimistic
  - Banditoz 14d ago
    I await your repo tomorrow, then! I'd be happy to use an alternative with all backfilled playercount data and sales history that hasn't been sold out.
  - amiga386 14d ago
    SteamDB is itself a massive collection of data - on pricing, game usage, etc. Scraped over years, in a way that Valve tolerate. It could not be vibecoded in a day unless you want to hallucinate the data, which makes the site useless. In fact, if the techbros actually tried, they'd force Valve into putting up anti-scraping countermeasures on all their APIs within hours.
  - pathartl 14d ago
    The value is in the contributed art.
  - whatevaa 14d ago
    Go ahead and do it just to prove a point.
  - 13d ago
rpdillon 14d ago
Better link about the background here is on SteamDB's blog: https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/ https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/ It seems pretty standard in terms of trajectory: hobby project blew up and became a thing people relied on, founder grew up over the years as well and can't sustain it. Company steps in to provide the "right resources", but inevitably doesn't emphasize too much the changes that will be needed to make it "sustainable". > Running a service like SteamDB is not easy. I wouldn't be able to live with myself by either just letting the site run as-is and letting it wither, or completely shut it down. In January, I started looking for a worthy partner that could continue the legacy that I had built. > This is where Nexus Mods comes in. And Chosen's CEO: > Our job isn't to change what makes SteamDB special. It's to give it the resources, team and long-term stability it deserves, while building a sustainable foundation that allows us to keep investing in and improving it for many years to come. So the real news here is what "sustainable foundation" means.
- HelloUsername 14d ago
  > https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/ https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/ Someone posted that before I see (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49534491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49534491) so perhaps post can be merged to there
- doctorpangloss 14d ago
  i don't know. the whole operation was kind of obnoxious. valve could provide all this information for free in an afternoon, but chooses not to. of course, by information, i mean: historical, per-user purchasing histories, which are 1,000,000% the most valuable piece of data. but since the guy who ran steamdb doesn't make games, he didn't comprehend what it was that was valuable, and instead, focused on CSGO "leaks."
- Sivart13 14d ago
  > So the real news here is what "sustainable foundation" means. I think that's answered pretty well by the 5 ads that open when I visit the announcement page on nexusmods.com link in the OP vs the speedy and clean UI that on the steamdb.info version (for now).
opello 14d ago
Title has an extra d after Steam.
- HelloUsername 14d ago
  Crapd. Can't edit anymore. But like I suggested elsewhere, perhaps comments can be moved to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49534491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49534491, they were first
  - Akronymus 14d ago
    you can send an email to dang to get it fixed
gpiechnik2 14d ago
[flagged]
amiga386 14d ago
[flagged]
- bakugo 14d ago
  Knowing Nexus, I do expect some manner of censorship, though the exact form this censorship will take remains to be seen. I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if they started taking payments from game publishers to hide historical player count data for certain games that aren't doing very well.
- seanw444 14d ago
  Do you know of any good alternatives to Nexus Mods? A peer-to-peer system would be really cool. Mod hosting over something like Reticulum, with mod manager integration, sounds like a dream.
  - long___cat 14d ago
    [dead]
  - keyringlight 14d ago
    And there's an example of one of the contradictions of modern PC gaming, for as much as it'll get hyped as a mostly open platform with a lot of freedom (in comparison to consoles), there's an awful lot that has coalesced on a small number of services over the years where an awful lot of value can vanish instantly if someone makes a decision you don't agree with or a service gets disrupted/closed.
    - seanw444 14d ago
      We still have the ability to use a different platform though. It's entirely up to the users to choose which services and programs to use to accomplish their goal. With consoles, you just get what you get, and have the privilege of paying a monthly subscription just to play multiplayer. When the demand for an alternative gets high enough, one will appear, because we have that ability.
  - 13d ago
Sweepi 14d ago
FAQ by SteamDB: https://steamdb.info/faq/?guildid=215154001799413770#why-should-the-community-trust-nexus-mods-with-steamdb https://steamdb.info/faq/?guildid=215154001799413770#why-sho... "Why should the community trust Nexus Mods with SteamDB?" You shouldn't have to take our word for it, so here are the commitments, in writing, that you can hold us to: SteamDB stays free. Nothing currently free goes behind a paywall. We don't sell your personal data. SteamDB keeps its own identity, site and community. The extension stays free and keeps working.
- PunchyHamster 14d ago
  none of that is legally enforceable so none of that matters, we had million stories of companies going back on their word, it isn't worth the rust it is written on
  - mastermage 13d ago
    I realy wished we had a way to have Companies make Legally enforcable claims.
- NamlchakKhandro 14d ago
  Lmfao
- snvzz 14d ago
  I remember reading something like that when Oculus Rift was acquired by Meta.
- account42 13d ago
  > SteamDB stays free So they'll add a ton of ads. > Nothing currently free goes behind a paywall. Technically true for Nexus Mods as well but they sure make access cumbersome for non-paying users. > We don't sell your personal data So they'll sell (barely) "anonymized" data. > The extension stays free and keeps working Yeah that's not the main concern people should have with an extension that gets free reign on the Steam store.
PunchyHamster 14d ago
R.I.P. it was a good site and couldn't fall into much worse hands
oybng 14d ago
Well it's dead now. The demise of NM has been very public
- baud147258 13d ago
  what happened? I just use NM once every few years to download the same handful of mods
schnebbau 14d ago
This uses a load of private Steam API endpoints to work, and I think Valve has just allowed that because it's a loved community project. Maybe they'll change their minds when NM tries to monetize it. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they just create their own first-party version, then nuke this one.
mastermage 13d ago
Honestly why couldn't steam itself operate this? It seems like a great additional resource to steam
Grisu_FTP 13d ago
Please dont get enshittified Please dont get enshittified It has been a constant good source for TitleIDs (for the steam compat folder when modding on linux), for Steam frame Hopium (when they updated FEX or Lepton or the Stick driver again) and looking at the patch history of games.
account42 13d ago
That's a shame. Nexus Mods has been a sore to modding that I wish would go away so we can have smaller per-game community-run infrastructure again that doesn't want to make you create an account just to download something. Does Nexus also get control of the SteamDB browser extension? While I was willing to trust xPaw for the convenience it provides I don't want to extend that trust to Nexus Mods.
- esperent 13d ago
  I hear people say this from time to time and yet to me it feels fine. Could be better, but it's free, everything is reasonably well organized and in one place. Meanwhile when I have occasionally ventured into per-game modding communities I've found the quality always pretty low and at times even feeling potentially scammy. So I don't think that "per game community run infrastructure" is an automatically good thing, as you seem to be implying. Probably the contrary, in fact. Even aside from the scammy feeling I got (it was years ago, GTA V mods maybe is what comes to mind), running a community is whole project in itself that most games simply won't drum up the interest for, so modding for all but very popular games would suffer.
- KetoManx64 13d ago
  [flagged]
dcchambers 13d ago
I don't love this. Wish Valve itself would have supported SteamDB.

130 points by HelloUsername 14d ago

Yea, the steamdb extension gets uninstalled now.

So, looks like SteamDB is gonna get a billion features behind paywall. Probably gonna rate limit how many depots you can look up for free within the hour lol

bjord 14d ago
I think that's perfectly reasonable if it means a more sustainable future
- giancarlostoro 14d ago
  Probably have ads because idk who would pay to lift those limits.
- brink 14d ago
  Is it for a sustainable future, or just extracting maximum value from the user?
- bakugo 14d ago
  Are you speaking purely out of principle, or do you truly believe it makes sense in this particular case? Personally, I just can't imagine anyone paying a monthly fee just to access metadata for Steam games and nothing else. At least with Nexus Mods, you're paying for (easier) access to actual content for your games.
  - Groxx 14d ago
    Probably speaking as someone who has used nexusmods in the past decade. Their monetization stuff is on the "lolwhat, that's kinda excessive" side of things.
    - Oxodao 13d ago
      I'm so thankful that Minecraft has developed it's own ecosystem for modding (I don't like CurseForge but it's MILES ahead of NM, and modrinth is great) and did not rely on NexusMods. Try to install a big modpack in TES, Fallout or Cyberpunk without actually paying for the API access, it's borderline insane.
  - bjord 12d ago
    I do believe it makes sense in this particular case. xPaw made it clear in his other half of the announcement that he's been burnt out for years, and a big portion of burnout is being asked to do things, whether you love them or not, for free. https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/ https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/
- PunchyHamster 14d ago
  apparently it was sustainable just fine before
  - bjord 12d ago
    you should read the other half of the announcement in which the founder talked about the burnout he was experiencing https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/ https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/
- account42 13d ago
  I disagree. The project dying would at least leave room for a successor, which an enshittified version might prevent.

haunter 14d ago

And the company behind Nexus: >We acquire. We amplify. We conquer. https://www.wearechosen.io/ https://www.wearechosen.io/ lmao good luck. Love how the guy was running the site alone becaue he couldn’t “trust anyone else” and ended up selling to a company like this. Though SteamDB is not irreplacebale at all, it’s running on the Steam Web API so not something super secret stuff.

tencentshill 14d ago
The fundamental function of the site can now be vibecoded in a day, so now has no value. The daily visitors are the only unused item of value remaining.
- bjord 14d ago
  that's optimistic
- Banditoz 14d ago
  I await your repo tomorrow, then! I'd be happy to use an alternative with all backfilled playercount data and sales history that hasn't been sold out.
- amiga386 14d ago
  SteamDB is itself a massive collection of data - on pricing, game usage, etc. Scraped over years, in a way that Valve tolerate. It could not be vibecoded in a day unless you want to hallucinate the data, which makes the site useless. In fact, if the techbros actually tried, they'd force Valve into putting up anti-scraping countermeasures on all their APIs within hours.
- pathartl 14d ago
  The value is in the contributed art.
- whatevaa 14d ago
  Go ahead and do it just to prove a point.
- 13d ago

rpdillon 14d ago

Better link about the background here is on SteamDB's blog: https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/ https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/ It seems pretty standard in terms of trajectory: hobby project blew up and became a thing people relied on, founder grew up over the years as well and can't sustain it. Company steps in to provide the "right resources", but inevitably doesn't emphasize too much the changes that will be needed to make it "sustainable". > Running a service like SteamDB is not easy. I wouldn't be able to live with myself by either just letting the site run as-is and letting it wither, or completely shut it down. In January, I started looking for a worthy partner that could continue the legacy that I had built. > This is where Nexus Mods comes in. And Chosen's CEO: > Our job isn't to change what makes SteamDB special. It's to give it the resources, team and long-term stability it deserves, while building a sustainable foundation that allows us to keep investing in and improving it for many years to come. So the real news here is what "sustainable foundation" means.

HelloUsername 14d ago
> https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/ https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/ Someone posted that before I see (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49534491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49534491) so perhaps post can be merged to there
doctorpangloss 14d ago
i don't know. the whole operation was kind of obnoxious. valve could provide all this information for free in an afternoon, but chooses not to. of course, by information, i mean: historical, per-user purchasing histories, which are 1,000,000% the most valuable piece of data. but since the guy who ran steamdb doesn't make games, he didn't comprehend what it was that was valuable, and instead, focused on CSGO "leaks."
Sivart13 14d ago
> So the real news here is what "sustainable foundation" means. I think that's answered pretty well by the 5 ads that open when I visit the announcement page on nexusmods.com link in the OP vs the speedy and clean UI that on the steamdb.info version (for now).

opello 14d ago

Title has an extra d after Steam.

HelloUsername 14d ago
Crapd. Can't edit anymore. But like I suggested elsewhere, perhaps comments can be moved to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49534491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49534491, they were first
- Akronymus 14d ago
  you can send an email to dang to get it fixed

gpiechnik2 14d ago

[flagged]

amiga386 14d ago

[flagged]

bakugo 14d ago
Knowing Nexus, I do expect some manner of censorship, though the exact form this censorship will take remains to be seen. I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if they started taking payments from game publishers to hide historical player count data for certain games that aren't doing very well.
seanw444 14d ago
Do you know of any good alternatives to Nexus Mods? A peer-to-peer system would be really cool. Mod hosting over something like Reticulum, with mod manager integration, sounds like a dream.
- long___cat 14d ago
  [dead]
- keyringlight 14d ago
  And there's an example of one of the contradictions of modern PC gaming, for as much as it'll get hyped as a mostly open platform with a lot of freedom (in comparison to consoles), there's an awful lot that has coalesced on a small number of services over the years where an awful lot of value can vanish instantly if someone makes a decision you don't agree with or a service gets disrupted/closed.
  - seanw444 14d ago
    We still have the ability to use a different platform though. It's entirely up to the users to choose which services and programs to use to accomplish their goal. With consoles, you just get what you get, and have the privilege of paying a monthly subscription just to play multiplayer. When the demand for an alternative gets high enough, one will appear, because we have that ability.
- 13d ago

Sweepi 14d ago

FAQ by SteamDB: https://steamdb.info/faq/?guildid=215154001799413770#why-should-the-community-trust-nexus-mods-with-steamdb https://steamdb.info/faq/?guildid=215154001799413770#why-sho... "Why should the community trust Nexus Mods with SteamDB?" You shouldn't have to take our word for it, so here are the commitments, in writing, that you can hold us to: SteamDB stays free. Nothing currently free goes behind a paywall. We don't sell your personal data. SteamDB keeps its own identity, site and community. The extension stays free and keeps working.

PunchyHamster 14d ago
none of that is legally enforceable so none of that matters, we had million stories of companies going back on their word, it isn't worth the rust it is written on
- mastermage 13d ago
  I realy wished we had a way to have Companies make Legally enforcable claims.
NamlchakKhandro 14d ago
Lmfao
snvzz 14d ago
I remember reading something like that when Oculus Rift was acquired by Meta.
account42 13d ago
> SteamDB stays free So they'll add a ton of ads. > Nothing currently free goes behind a paywall. Technically true for Nexus Mods as well but they sure make access cumbersome for non-paying users. > We don't sell your personal data So they'll sell (barely) "anonymized" data. > The extension stays free and keeps working Yeah that's not the main concern people should have with an extension that gets free reign on the Steam store.

PunchyHamster 14d ago

R.I.P. it was a good site and couldn't fall into much worse hands

oybng 14d ago

Well it's dead now. The demise of NM has been very public

baud147258 13d ago
what happened? I just use NM once every few years to download the same handful of mods

schnebbau 14d ago

This uses a load of private Steam API endpoints to work, and I think Valve has just allowed that because it's a loved community project. Maybe they'll change their minds when NM tries to monetize it. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they just create their own first-party version, then nuke this one.

mastermage 13d ago

Honestly why couldn't steam itself operate this? It seems like a great additional resource to steam

Grisu_FTP 13d ago

Please dont get enshittified Please dont get enshittified It has been a constant good source for TitleIDs (for the steam compat folder when modding on linux), for Steam frame Hopium (when they updated FEX or Lepton or the Stick driver again) and looking at the patch history of games.

account42 13d ago

That's a shame. Nexus Mods has been a sore to modding that I wish would go away so we can have smaller per-game community-run infrastructure again that doesn't want to make you create an account just to download something. Does Nexus also get control of the SteamDB browser extension? While I was willing to trust xPaw for the convenience it provides I don't want to extend that trust to Nexus Mods.

esperent 13d ago
I hear people say this from time to time and yet to me it feels fine. Could be better, but it's free, everything is reasonably well organized and in one place. Meanwhile when I have occasionally ventured into per-game modding communities I've found the quality always pretty low and at times even feeling potentially scammy. So I don't think that "per game community run infrastructure" is an automatically good thing, as you seem to be implying. Probably the contrary, in fact. Even aside from the scammy feeling I got (it was years ago, GTA V mods maybe is what comes to mind), running a community is whole project in itself that most games simply won't drum up the interest for, so modding for all but very popular games would suffer.
KetoManx64 13d ago
[flagged]

dcchambers 13d ago

I don't love this. Wish Valve itself would have supported SteamDB.