Valve developers withhold information from players to make the testing phase work better…

It made waves even before its official existence, but what has happened since Valve officially announced Deadlock is hard to believe. A game that we didn’t know anything about until recently and is in closed beta has become one of the most popular games on Steam. Undoubtedly, the developers are happy with the reception of their MOBA/hero shooter hybrid. However, the success also brought a problem with only one radical solution.

Valve bans websites with Deadlock statistics

Competitive games that are popular enough are often surrounded by websites called “trackers.” These provide information about certain statistics of the given game and a wealth of data designed to help players optimize their decisions and improve their effectiveness in the game.

These sites exist not only because there is a real need for this information, but also because the developers make it possible. By providing this data, journalists and content creators talk more about the title, users can quickly make up for their absence from the game, and it positively affects how the community evaluates the game’s balance. Valve itself seems to be positive about such sites. Dota 2 sites have been around for years without any problems. However, the Deadlock developers have now banned them.

If you go to TrackLock, Deadlock’s most popular stats tracking website, the site says that it has not been able to get new stats since September 2nd.

This situation was confirmed by the creator of the service himself on his official Discord: “Valve has introduced much more aggressive restrictions, and now you can’t follow new games (…) I want to tell you not to go to Valve to complain. This game is in beta and obviously not ready for the web ‘tracker’ yet. We’ll use this time to improve some features and come back when there’s a solution.”

Valve has disabled statistics collection because Deadlock is in beta. At this stage of the game, information can be problematic. The official function of these sites is to optimize decision-making for users, which is a problem in itself. To improve a game’s design, you need to see how users make mistakes, try weird things, and play with their intuition. In this sense, the development team will likely re-enable data collection as the release or testing of competitive modes approaches.

The development of Deadlock continues smoothly and the game continues to grow its users at a steady pace. We’ll see how long this particular test phase of Valve’s video game lasts. However, if we want to be optimistic, here’s a reminder. Dota 2’s testing phase started in 2011 and ended in 2013… the day the game was officially released.

Source: TrackLock