"There’s a new tool taking shape that aims to make it easier for people to keep tabs on Steam statistics like how many people own a game and how long they’ve spent playing it: Steam Spy, a side project launched by programmer Sergey Galyonkin.
This is a huge deal for game developers, as it potentially makes it much easier to study how Steam games are sold and played over time. The tracker is still in alpha, but already several developers have confirmed to Gamasutra that their actual sales fall within the range of owners estimated by Steam Spy…"
Maybe. Though, it also could be a stroke of brilliance. Getting in front of the issue, as the say.
If it were called HappyAwsomeGameDevHelper or whatever, people would freak and throw fit calling it spyware. By having spy right in the title, they are owning it, and potentially diffusing backlash by not trying hide or make it spin it.
Though we are talking about online gamers. They still may get pissy and assume ‘spy’ is just a cover secret program that rounds up and kills all the cutest puppies in the world.
Since this is all presumably data that Steam tracks anyway I’d say that being up front about it, calling it “Blah Spy”, and then disclosing what of that information it accesses/uses should be a pretty reasonable way to diffuse the concern it’s likely to raise.