SteamDB Joins Nexus Mods With Pledge to Keep Site Free

Nexus Mods has brought SteamDB, the independent Steam database and tracking site, under the same ownership as the modding platform, with both sites publishing announcements on September 2, 2026. SteamDB keeps its name, brand, community, and free access, while founder xPaw stays on through a transition period.

Why SteamDB Sought a New Owner

xPaw and Marlamin started SteamDB in 2013, and the site grew from a curiosity-driven project into a widely used resource for player counts, pricing history, update information, and other Steam data. Marlamin stepped back from the project some years ago, leaving the workload to xPaw, who ran the site as a donation-supported passion project with hours he described as a full-time job. In his own announcement on SteamDB, he wrote that the project had occupied his whole adult life and that he had begun experiencing burnout. He had tried to find someone to continue the project a few years earlier, could not find a team he was confident in, and began searching for a partner in January.

That search led to Nexus Mods, which has operated for 25 years and, like SteamDB, grew from a passion project into a service relied upon by tens of millions of people, according to the Nexus Mods announcement. In the Nexus Mods post, xPaw said what mattered most to him was finding a team that understands what it means to be responsible for something the community depends on, and that shares his belief in building useful tools for gamers. He said SteamDB will continue to be SteamDB, adding that the goal is not to change what makes the project special but to give it the resources, development capacity, and long-term stability he could no longer provide alone. He will work with the new team over the coming months to support the transition.

Ownership of both services now sits with Chosen, the company that owns Nexus Mods. Victor Folmann, CEO of Nexus Mods and founder of Chosen, said in the SteamDB post that he founded Chosen to become the kind of long-term owner he wished had existed when he sold his own company. He described SteamDB as exactly the kind of project Chosen wants to be a home for and said the site’s trust was earned over more than a decade, a trust he said the new owners must now earn the right to carry forward.

What Changes and What Stays the Same

For users, the sites say the short-term answer is very little. A joint FAQ published on SteamDB states that the site keeps running exactly as it does today, with the same features, data, and URL, still free to use, and with Steam sign-in retained for the features that use it. No Nexus Mods account will be needed to browse SteamDB, the Discord and Steam communities remain SteamDB spaces, and the two services remain separate. The FAQ also commits that nothing currently free will move behind a paywall, that no display or programmatic advertising is planned, and that personal data will not be sold. SteamDB keeps its own identity and editorial independence, including reporting facts Valve or publishers might not welcome. The browser extension stays free and maintained, and the FAQ states any meaningful change to its behavior would be flagged in the changelog before it ships.

On monetization, the FAQ is direct: SteamDB needs to make money. Rather than advertising, the companies say they will look at partnerships, integrations, and affiliate links with publishers when users buy a game after visiting the site, acknowledging those routes take longer to set up. The FAQ also points to building better relations and tools for developers and publishers, which it says will most likely mean an API at some point, directing interested parties to a partnerships contact.

Behind the scenes, SteamDB moves from what Nexus Mods called a one-man band to a properly funded cross-functional team with modern infrastructure, security, and scalability. Nexus Mods said that should mean more capacity to work through long-standing improvements, maintain and develop the browser extension, and improve game coverage. SteamDB has historically relied on donated Steam keys to track game files and depots; Nexus Mods said it will now also fund keys itself, with community contributions still playing a role. SteamDB has also published an updated privacy policy and cookie policy, and the FAQ says the site plans to use aggregate analytics to understand which features people use. The FAQ further notes the site may need to comply with local laws, which could mean certain images are blurred in some countries, with game and historic metadata still available in its current format.

The Modding Angle

For Nexus Mods, the acquisition centers on game-version data. The platform said one of the most common ways a modded game stops working is a silent game update, because mods are often built around a particular version of a game. SteamDB tracks game builds, depots, manifests, files, and update history across Steam, including years of historical data. Nexus Mods said it had already started collecting Steam game data itself but found older manifests and versions much harder to access once an update is pushed, something it said SteamDB does far better.

Over time, Nexus Mods said it wants to explore how a mod manager could better understand which version of a game a user is running, whether mods being installed were built for it, and whether an incoming update is likely to cause issues. It also said Collections and other mod lists could better specify the exact game version they were built for. The platform cautioned that considerable work sits between taking over SteamDB and reaching that point, and said it does not want to promise features before they exist.