After killing SteamSpy - accidentally or on purpose - Valve says it can do what the data and research outfit was doing better.

That's according to Valve business development chief Jan-Peter Ewert, who was asked at White Nights 18 - as posted on Twitter - whether the company was going to be offering sales data to developers as SteamSpy did. The biz dev bod said the firm had heard the criticism about the lack of info, but also criticised SteamSpy for being inaccurate.

Of course, SteamSpy never claimed to be accurate and was incredibly open about the fact that the figures it provided were estimates. Regardless of their veracity, developers still loved the service for giving a ball park figure for how games were doing.

"I'm essentially trying to explain why we think you need something better than Steam Spy," Ewert said.

"So, to be clear, we don't have a business selling iPhones. The only way we make money is if you make good decisions in bringing the right games to the platform, and finding your audience. So, yes, we are very much working on new tools and new ways of getting data out of Steam, and we hope that data can be more accurate and more useful than what SteamSpy previously offered you."

SteamSpy had to close earlier this year after Valve made changes to how profiles on Steam worked. The data firm had relied on user info being public to make its guesses. Since, Sergey Galyonkin - the man who created SteamSpy has been making steps to bring the service back. As of today, it looks like he might have succeeded.