Valve has closed out the new year by revealing the most successful games on Steam over the last 12 months. The list is filled with familiar faces and some games that you have potentially put hundreds of hours into.
Up first, the top sellers, as measured by gross revenue. This basically means the money magnets, the games that had people throwing more cash at them than any other. In the Platinum spot, we have the following:
- PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
- Destiny 2
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Among Us
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Dota 2
- Doom Eternal
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Monster Hunter: World
- Fall Guys
- Rainbow Six Siege
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds continues to prove that the battle royale market is a two-horse race by bringing in bucketfuls of money each year, while Destiny 2 seems to be doing just fine after Bungie’s divorce from Activision. Rockstar has two major titles on the list, showing that you can suck people in with quality single-player content and then keep them there with online modes after the fact. Among Us and Fall Guys would be a surprise if you predicted them at the start of the year, but you get no points for it now, I’m afraid.
As for the list of most played games, there are some interesting moves on that list, which shows that value for money propositions and a passionate playerbase are hard to beat.
- Destiny 2
- Among Us
- Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Dota 2
- Life is Strange 2
- Terraria
- Battlegrounds
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Monster Hunter: World
So while Red Dead Redemption 2 makes the Top 10 for money spent, it can’t even crack the Top 30 for most played. You can insert your monetization jokes as you see fit. Meanwhile, Terraria and Life is Strange 2 both stake their claim near the top of the charts thanks to a combination of having lots of content or extremely passionate fans who want to experience every inch of the game.
As for Cyberpunk 2077, the game many people consider to be the biggest letdown of the year, it simply runs better on PC and is less prone to many of the game-breaking issues that have let down console players. It should also be noted that this is based on the peak number of players, with each of the above titles breaking the 200,000 mark at some point in the year.
