Steam will drop Google Analytics on July 1st for better privacy

Valve, the video game development and distribution company, announced that it will no longer support Google Analytics on its Steam platform. Instead, Valve will be updating its own traffic reporting tools as part of an effort to align with its approach to customer privacy. Valve stated that it will continue to not track demographic details like age, gender, or race, and will avoid inadvertently communicating information that could be used to identify visitors.

The company's privacy policy has not changed, but the decision to drop Google Analytics is an apparent effort to better comply with its own rules. Valve did not specify what about Google Analytics doesn't "align" with its privacy approach or whether the switch to Google Analytics 4 is the motivating factor or just a good moment to make the split.

Valve's updated traffic reporting tools will include a regional breakdown that displays the geographical sources of Steam page traffic, which can be useful when considering the languages to support in a game or where to locate servers for a multiplayer game. Support for Google Analytics will end on July 1, which is also when Google is switching off an old system, called Universal Analytics, and replacing it with a new service called Google Analytics 4.

Even if Valve assured that the new traffic reporting system will be as efficient as possible, it has already received mixed reactions from developers. Some of them feel that Steam does not provide all the information and data compared to Google Analytics and delayed reporting is seen as a step backward by some. Google Analytics was the only way for small publishers to run ads and find players who might like their game on Google.