Can I buy a game anonymously to the publisher or developer?

[Jack_Li]

I don't want to leak any personal information to the merchants. I wonder if the publishers can view my steam profiles, payment information, credit card number, tracking my gaming process... I mean I lirerally wish to keep my information confidential to the publisher.
If no, how can I purchase a game anonymously?
Thanks a lot

[ZanyScum]

I can't imagine that Valve gives this information to the developers.
There is no reason to anyway. You buy from Valve, not from anyone else.

[Jack_Li]

ZanyScum Hopefully. Thank u

[Kargor]

Your payment data is with Steam; it has no use for publishers or developers anyway.

Everyone can view your Steam profile -- you've not set it to private. Whether publishers have a quick way to get a list of all the public profiles that own a game of theirs -- I don't know. There's really no use for such a list; they are interested in overall numbers, not individuals.

As for progress... they don't have access to your saves, but like I said before, they can see your achievements since they are public, which can give them an indication of your progress in many games (particularly those with achievements like "finished chapter 1", "finished chapter 2" etc.). But, again, they are only interested in overall numbers, not "your" progress specifically. Those summaries are likely to include private profiles as well.

Whether or not a Steam game can report additional information that publishers can use -- I don't know. What it CAN do, of course, is to send information to their own servers.

[Jack_Li]

Kargor Appreciate for your answer. Actually i'm wondering if our consumption habits and gaming preference are collected specifically to promote their products through ads. Hopefully my data can be used to carve their next game instead of spamming ads to me lol

[Lithurge]

Valves privacy policy is here:

https://store.steampowered.com/privacy_agreement/

It's about as good as you're going to get for data not being shared to provide 3rd party's with the info to identify and advertise to you directly. Any games promoted to you on Steam are promoted by Steam themselves based on your data, not a publisher.

[Jack_Li]

Lithurge This helps me a lot. Thank u

[MancSoulja]

Developers get metadata not personal data, how many people purchase what on what day, they get no personally identifiable information as that would breach GDPR.

[my new friend]

Write a review, they know you own the game.
Post in their game hub, they know you own the game or not.
If the game has a workshop and you want to make an item of your own, they know you own the game.
Achievements were already mentioned.
They can view what amounts to the Steam Hardware Survey but broken down to users who own their game. Those stats are only from who participated in the survey, anonymously.