On September 2, the two most-used unofficial sites in PC gaming came under one roof: Nexus Mods acquired SteamDB, the thirteen-year-old database of Steam prices, player counts and build history. Terms were not disclosed. The founder’s stated reason was simpler than any strategy deck — he was burned out.

Steam logo
SteamDB has tracked Steam's catalogue since 2013.

The Founder’s Account

Pavel “xPaw” Djundik built SteamDB with Marlamin in 2013; Marlamin stepped back years ago, leaving a hobby that had quietly become a full-time job financed by donations.

“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.”

His blog post was blunter about why: “After COVID and with the rise of AI, the internet we once loved is gone, and with it my passion.”

What Nexus Mods Promised

Nexus’ announcement is unusually specific about what will not change:

  • SteamDB keeps its name, brand, community and identity; it is not being folded into Nexus
  • No Nexus Mods account required to browse; the two services stay separate
  • Everything free today stays free, the browser extension keeps being maintained, and the Discord and Steam group stay SteamDB spaces
  • No plans to sell user data; commercialization will lean on affiliate links and sponsorships rather than ads or paywalls, according to the FAQ coverage by Steam Deck HQ and TechSpot

xPaw, pushed on paywalls directly: “Everything that’s free on SteamDB today stays free. If we build genuinely new things someday, we may make decisions about those then, but nothing you know and use today is getting taken away and sold back to you.”

Nexus Mods interface
Nexus Mods — acquired SteamDB on September 2
Valve offices
SteamDB remains an independent, unofficial view of Valve's store

The Technical Logic

Nexus Mods’ stated interest is version data. SteamDB tracks builds, depots, manifests and update histories for years — exactly the information needed to answer the oldest complaint in modding: will this mod survive the next patch?

The long-term ideas Nexus floats: a mod manager that knows which game version you have installed, flags incompatible mods, and warns before a Steam update breaks a setup; version pinning for collections; verifying installations against known-clean files; and cross-links between the two sites (a SteamDB page showing a thriving modding scene, a Nexus page showing live player counts).

Nexus also says it will start buying Steam keys itself, rather than relying on community donations to track game files.

Why the Community Is Unhappy

Trust, not technology. Nexus Mods changed hands in June 2025, when founder Robin “Dark0ne” Scott sold the platform after nearly 24 years to Victor Folmann’s company Chosen — a sale that was itself heavily criticized. Users point to a divisive site redesign, restrictions on mod authors permanently deleting their files, and the retirement of the multiplatform app in favor of Vortex.

The reaction has been blunt: TechSpot’s commenters and Vice’s cited posts fret about the price history tracker going behind a paywall, while coverage in IXBT framed the fear as “they will delete statistics that investors don’t like, just like they do with mods.” Rockstar dataminer VideoTech called it “terrible news.”

What Would Change First

Watch three things: whether SteamDB’s free tiers stay untouched after the transition team is in place, whether commercialization ever reaches the price-history and player-chart pages, and whether Nexus’ mod-version data actually lands as a working feature rather than a press-release ambition.

Sources