Show HN: I scrape Steam data every month and it's yours to download for free
66 comments
·February 24, 2025Apreche
Do you have data that https://steamdb.info/ doesn’t have?
noirscape
Steamdb lacks an API for one, and the devs officially have a policy that they'll never make one, saying you should just scrape Steam directly instead of bugging them about it[0].
It means that steamdb, while extraordinarily useful for casual prodding at what's stored on Valve's servers, isn't very good if you want to run data analysis or something like that on the metadata of Steam games at scale.
Not sure if it's legal to charge for the raw scrape when OP doesn't seem to be affiliated with Valve, but that's not up to me to figure out.
seanw444
This whole time I was under the impression that SteamDB was owned by Valve. Huh.
mistergoodwin
All run by one person who doesn't even take donations for the service they provide.
They joined here on an Ask HN about "Those making $0/month or less on side projects – Show and tell"
joseda-hg
That seems pretty reasonable, it's their data, they just make useful visualizations
m00dy
If you need to be a paid member to download csv file, then it is not free :) lol
nickthegreek
free tier allows you to download the csv.
xerox13ster
If you need to make an account and give this guy personal information (a digital commodity like oil) to see the data it's not free lmao
stronglikedan
> If you need to make an account and give this guy personal information
In this case, you don't. That's just to weed out people who can't figure out temporary emails. I just used one to create an account without turning over any PI.
null
xerox13ster
[flagged]
kmfrk
I got some answers that weren't specifically about my questions in some instances. As someone who's just trying out the free demo, it's not a big deal, but maybe you can provide a way to flag answers for to redeem their credits? It would probably increase retention and help people chase down bugs.
ghfhghg
I guess the main differentiator over steamdb is getting the data in CSV?
Might be good to clarify in the FAQ because the people I know who would pay for this are not the most techy types.
ddxv
Hi, I'm interested in scraping steam too. Do you have the scraper code available open source or one you recommend?
lolinder
Have you looked over the data that OP is providing here and determined that it doesn't meet your needs?
Generally it's polite to avoid scraping if you can help it, so I'd start by considering whether OP is already providing what you are looking for.
netruk44
I wrote a simple scraper for a 'steam game semantic search' app I built a while ago.
It definitely won't fetch all the data that this person does though. It only fetches the current list of games on Steam, their store page information and some reviews for the game.
The code quality probably isn't amazing, but it might give you an idea of how to get started with your own scraper.
https://github.com/Netruk44/steam-embedding-search/blob/main...
ddxv
Thanks! That's perfect, just want somewhere to get started.
DrammBA
https://steamdb.info/faq/#how-are-we-getting-this-informatio...
I found this explanation from steamdb that points to the various projects and libraries they use to gather all the data they have. It's not a how-to, but it has very useful info.
z3c0
I had to refresh before posting, because I wanted to see if someone else beat me to being that HN commenter but...
From the Terms of Service (emphasis mine):
6. Restrictions on Use
You agree not to:
Use the Service for any unlawful purpose.
Attempt to reverse-engineer, modify, or *create derivative works of the Service.*
Share, resell, or distribute downloadable data provided by the Service without explicit written permission.
That aside, it's an intriguing dataset nonetheless, but I'd prefer to see a sample of the data before signing up.
csmets
Thank you for highlighting this. I've updated the terms to align with the values of this service.
akudha
Steamdb.info displays graphs etc. Is that considered a “derivative work”?
I am not sure what is considered derivative work and what isn’t
z3c0
IANAL but I am someone who deals heavily in 1) scraping and 2) data and the analysis, enrichment & brokerage thereof. As such, I like to consult this for anything regarding US Copyright law: https://www.copyright.gov/circs
Circular 14 addresses derivative works, including those based on data: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf
Steamdb.info is a derivative work, yes. And scraping is usually accepted as Fair Use, so both services are presumably within their rights, but they have no claim to the underlying data, only their process of enrichment. If someone were to build a new service based on the data presented on either site, there's not much they could do to stop them... short of getting them to agree not to do so via their ToS.
OpenAI is a great example of a company who built a derivative work on scraped data available under Fair Use, and then subsequently gated their data via their ToS. With such a popular precedent at play, I'd rather not use any services doing anything similar, especially when steamdb.info doesn't even have a ToS.
akudha
Thank you. Does this still hold good if steamdb was making money (ads, for example)?
Also, I am wary of using big companies like OpenAI as precedent. Big companies can do whatever they want and get away with a lot of stuff that individuals and smaller companies can only dream of
JadoJodo
At a glance, it appears the product is the “chat with the data" feature; The CSV is free.
z3c0
I might be inclined to seek the raw data, should it be more cost effective than scraping Steam myself.
Being a user, free, paid, or anonymous, can still be under the thumb of their ToS, especially so if they force a dialog in front of you to agree to the ToS while signing up. I'm merely pointing out hurdles to the OP that may obstruct some of the people they are trying to reach.
DrammBA
What I don't understand is the difference between 'Download all CSV data' in the free tier and 'Download CSV data' / 'Download raw data' in the paid member tier. It seems that the free CSV data is likely an extract or digest of the raw data offered as a sample.
stared
Regarding Steam data, I am curious about how games are being played (hours spent) and, even more, about their co-occurrence (i.e., player X spent both time on game A and game B). I would love to make a visualization like https://p.migdal.pl/tagoverflow/?site=gaming&size=32, but for Steam data.
Also, for deeper insight than sales volumes (e.g., game design, general trends, demographics, types of players), such things would be crucial.
and
Ksudijaan
It is not that difficult to scrape Steam data using SteamKit, right? I build a website around Steam data a couple of years ago, with a small scraper app which was hourly scraping new updates (using SteamKit) and putting it into my database.
The biggest advantage that SteamDB has, is that it has a ton of historical data. That is not retrievable from the Steam Network, so the only way to have gotten historical data is to start early.
My website is now defunct for a year, but I've kept the scraper running. I now have 7 years of historical data in my database.
eamsen
Can you please provide examples for the raw data? As a user, I would like to know what I'm buying before paying.
bdd8f1df777b
It seems to be missing reviews? I have always thought about building my own recommendation engine from steam data, given how steam's own recommendation never works for me.
aranw
Nice! It would be nice however to see more detail about the data you collect and what exactly you provide on top of it using AI or through aggregation etc
somenameforme
Out of curiosity, what formula did you end up using for reviews:sales? I've looked into this a bunch and it's a very tough problem!
Yeah, there's AI, but I added it because I found it easier to find answers I'm looking for. For the data scientists, you can download the CSV and go crazy. Would love to know what discoveries or learnings can be found from it.
To download the raw scraped data you need to become a paid member but you don't really need it unless you're wanting to finesse a table of data for a particular need. The cost is mostly just an incentive to help me pay the bills for running the website.
The bunch of available CSV files contain large amounts of data which has everything from tags, genres, pricing, wishlists, estimated revenue, etc. It's what the AI is reading from.
Hope you find it useful :-)