SteamDB, the community-run tracker that millions of players and developers lean on for live Steam data, has been acquired by Chosen, the company that owns modding portal Nexus Mods. The deal was announced on September 2 in statements from SteamDB founder Pavel "xPaw" Djundik and Nexus Mods. Terms have not been disclosed.
Both sides stress that little should change for people who use the site. SteamDB will keep its own name, brand, and identity rather than being folded into Nexus Mods, and Djundik will keep working with the new owners over the coming months to smooth the handover.
Why the founder stepped away
Djundik co-founded SteamDB in 2013, and in his announcement he framed the move as the end of a long, unpaid grind. "What started as a hobby project became something I could never have imagined," he wrote. He described the site as effectively a full-time job that had taken its toll, calling it an "ever increasing self inflicted workload."
He also pointed to a broader shift in the online landscape. "After COVID and with the rise of AI, the internet we once loved is gone, and with it my passion," he wrote, adding that he had tried a few years ago to find someone to continue the project but couldn't find a team he trusted. According to Rock Paper Shotgun, co-founder Marlamin is stepping back alongside him.
SteamDB has long been sustained mainly by community donations. Djundik said he started looking for a partner in January, writing at the time that "what mattered most to me was finding a team that understands what it means to be responsible for something the community depends on."
What Nexus Mods gets out of it
Victor Folmann, CEO of Chosen, said the goal is stability, not a reinvention. "We aren't just folding it into Nexus Mods, in fact, in the short-term, there shouldn't be much you notice at all," he wrote. Behind the scenes, he said, the plan is a properly funded team, better infrastructure, improved game coverage, and continued work on things like the site's browser extension.
Folmann was candid about the modding angle. Nexus Mods has already begun collecting Steam game data itself, but once an update ships, manifests and files for older versions get hard to access, an area where SteamDB's massive back catalogue already outperforms Nexus. Folmann said the company wants to explore how a mod manager could recognize which version of a game someone is running, and warn when an incoming update might break installed mods.
SteamDB will stay free to access, but Chosen says it will look for ways to make the site sustainable beyond donations. Folmann ruled out plastering the site with ads, describing instead "lighter-touch" options such as partnerships, integrations, and affiliate links with publishers. He also said Chosen would start funding Steam keys itself to improve coverage of games that don't reach its platform.
This is the second such handover in the same orbit. Chosen only took over Nexus Mods in June 2025, after founder Robin "Dark0ne" Scott said he wanted to step back from the day-to-day running of the site.
What it means for players
If you use SteamDB to check player counts, patch histories, or depot data, nothing should break in the near term. The more interesting payoff sits further out: tighter links between SteamDB's version tracking and Nexus Mods' tooling could make mods less likely to shatter every time a game updates. That matters for anyone who mods heavily patched titles on Steam, and it lines up with Nexus Mods' recent push into open-source Unreal modding tools aimed at games like The Blood of Dawnwalker.
