For a few short, glorious days in July there was a way to accurately estimate Steam player numbers.
And since we've got the full list,
the total players numbers for nearly every game played,
we here at Extra Credits thought it would be fun to dig into that data
and talk about some of the tidbits we found.
*theme rolls*
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The first and most important thing to know about all these numbers
is that they're for the number of players who have played the gave over its life time.
Which means older games have an advantage.
Also, anyone who's thrown a free weekend has another big advantage since those numbers count.
Lastly, the method for getting this data relied on Steam achievements.
So any game without those, most notably DOTA 2, we have no data for.
So with all those caveats out of the way let's dive in.
First the thing I know that most people will probably want to know:
The Top 11 List
Yes, that's right. Eleven, not ten.
Because I know how many anguished cries there would be if I didn't get to that number 11 spot.
You'll see. Just trust me.
The list goes like this:
1- Team Fortress 2
2- Counter Strike: Global Offensive
3- Playerunknown's Battlegrounds
4- Unturned
5- Left 4 Dead 2
6- Payday 2
7- Garry's Mod
8- Warframe
9- Counter-Strike: Source
10- Paladins
And the coveted number 11 spot
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
So, what does this list tell us?
Well, a couple of things right off the bat.
First off, that Steam really does love multiplayer shooters.
I mean, nine out of the top ten fall into that category.
Second, that free-to-play really isn't dominant on Steam.
Only three of the top ten are free-to-play.
But, eventually dropping your game under twenty dollars
helps a ton if you're trying to crack this top ten list.
DLC and micro-transactions don't seem to be too much of a deterrent, though.
Also, in what I'm sure will be a shock to everyone,
Valve games do well on Valve's platform.
Oh, and I knew Paladins was popular
but I had no idea it was that popular.
Remember, though
this is all about the number of players that have played a game.
It says nothing about revenue.
So Skyrim made more money than some of these games
even though they had a few million more players.
And some of these games millions of people probably played for five minutes and then set it down.
Still!
It's eye-opening.
But on to the interesting and weird facts.
First off,
we're going to talk James' favorite.
Civilization
He loves the Civilization games but everyone knows they don't really get good until all the expantions are out.
And for Civ VI people really seem to be taking that lesson to the bank.
Civ V is the 14th most played game on Steam.
Civ VI?
The 90th
with about nine-million less players.
Sure, Civ V has been around a lot longer,
but nowhere else on this chart will you see a sequel get trounced that badly.
Here's another one I enjoy.
You thought Stardew Valley was popular.
Well, do you know what has it beat by a million players?
Euro Truck Simulator 2
Interestingly, hardcore sims seem to have a fairly solid fan-base
with a surprising number of them clocking in between 750 thousand and a million and a half players.
Now, that's not top end triple-a numbers
but a lot of those games seem fairly cheap to make.
And so probably provide solid returns for their small teams.
Heck, even really specific, really tiny sims like Fernbus Simulator,
basically an advergame for one particular line of German buses,
clocks in at around one-hundred-thousand units.
Either the Fernbus IP is worth a lot more than I thought,
or there's a pretty big niche of people who just love driving weird vehicles in the most accurate way possible.
And I don't know how you reach those fans just beyond making some kind of complex sim
but they're out there and they seem hungry for content.
Similarly, there seems to be concentric rings of survival fans.
Where ever you see a survival game you'll usually see one or two more within a slot or two.
Ark and Rust are right next to each other.
7 Days to Die and Space Engineers are right next to each other.
Subnautica and This War of Mine are only a stone's throw away.
For a while in the game industry, the common perception was that survival games were like MMO's:
people only really played one.
But this sort of game grouping implies to me
though this, admittedly, is a wild assumption
that this isn't quite true.
A large number of these players, at least, try a few different survival games.
Which means there's still a bit more room here for the next big thing
than in something like, say, MOBA's.
Oh
and before anyone says that strategy is dead
Civilization V, Age of Empires II, two Total Wars, and Crusader Kings II
all have been played more by people on Steam than any of the Call of Duty's
except Modern Warfare 2.
Adventure games, on the other hand, don't seem to fare as well.
Life is Strange is the only adventure game to even crack the top 100.
Even Telltale games seem to have been slipping.
With everything outside of The Walking Dead and the Wolf Among Us bellow a million players
And their later entries like Batman and Guardians of the Galaxy not even cracking 100 thousand players on Steam.
CRPG's seem to have a cap around a million and a half players.
With Divinity, Divinity II, and Pillars of Eternity all somewhere in that range.
That's a little sad for those of us who love such things.
But the good news for CRPG devs
is that if you do manage to put out a high production value, well-reviewed CRPG
it looks like most of the audience will buy it.
Anything bellow an 85 on MetaCritic, though, and it looks like the numbers drop a lot.
Action RPG's fair better, though.
With things like Path of Exile around seven-million players
and Torchlight II closing in around five-million
even without being free-to-play.
A good walking simulator can clear a few hundred-thousand copies
but not much more.
So if that's your indie dream, just know what you cap is.
At least, for PC.
Firewatch was the most successful I could find
with nearly a million players.
Gone Home had half a million
and Edith Finch was at about a hundred-eighty-thousand.
After that the numbers get pretty low.
Okay, let's finish this off with a few silly ones for ya.
Less people have played Undertale on Steam than Goat Simulator.
But more people have played CSGO than live in Spain.
Roughly the same amount have tried Wallpaper Engine
which, yes, apparently has achievements.
as have ever played any of the Resident Evil's on Steam.
And more people have played No Man's Sky on Steam than Nier: Automata.
And last but not least
if you earned a dollar for every game with achievements that someone had played on Steam
you'd be a billionaire.
So, minus thirty percent for Valve's cut
and, I'm checkin' my math here.
Uh, Nope.
Still not enough to make Half-Life 3.
Zing!
You knew a Half-Life 3 joke was coming.
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