Steam being the most well known platform for PC gamers has released new statistics of it’s growth and just one of those numbers is a massive 27 million new PC gamers.
Just recently one of Steams leading games PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds hit 500,000 concurrent users, and now GeekWire is reporting that at Valve’s presentation a slide featured showed Steam has a massive player base of 33 million daily players. Concluding a total of 67 million monthly active players.
What is more impressive though is Steam’s growth. Since January 2016 Valve reports that Steam has grown a total of 27 million players which divides down to 1.5 million new players per month over the course of 18 months.
On the latest record Valve has a total of 125 million registered users all of which are spread across the planet on a global scale. North America takes a massive 34% of that number, following behind is Europe with 29% and Asia with 17%.
Source: Gamespot
Hello! My name Jak Connor I’m based in Australia and I picked up PCgaming as child when I was around ten years old. I mostly played RTS games back then, putting many hours into Age of Empires 1/2 and Age of Mythology. My love for PC gaming grew and stayed with me as I now have a passion for gaming and the amazing technology jumps developers show us all the time. I pledge that I will be bringing you fine people of DSOgaming the most unique and interesting news I can find!
and yet E.A. and other foolish Pubs and devs refuse to put their games on STEAM. SMH.
It’s just business. It’s how it is. You don’t want to fill your competitors coffers. Us, end-users, get the short end of the stick, having to run multiple backgrounds apps (instead of none… GOG anyone?), but from an objective viewpoint, I can’t blame them. It’s just business.
They end up losing out on the bigger profit though, that’s why you see EA acting all smug and “content” with their sales on origin, despite the fact that they have far less of a userbase and far less competition to force them to lower their insane prices.
It is just business, but it’s a bad move no matter how many times EA or an EA supporter try to spin it.
You want more people buying your games, not 5 people buying your games and charging insanely high for them. Especially when the quality bar doesn’t meet the RRP.
THIS x 1000
“They end up losing out on the bigger profit though”
Debatable, unfortunately. I mean, when GTA inevitably ends up dropping Steam in the aftermath of Bugthesda abandoning Steam as well, they’ll inevitably each see themselves losing a portion of their overall sales figures, absolutely, but so long as the extra 30% (formerly known as Valve’s distribution cut) they’re going to be making on each & every PC sale makes up for that, they’ll never give a single flying f*ck about the lost sales or the angry customers.
So, yeah, of course, at the end of the day it’s a very anti-consumer measure to undertake, no question there, but from a business perspective the “loss” that we imagine must be minuscule, assuming they can even find one in the first place, when balancing it against “30% extra money.”
And even if they could, I think even an analyst with a pie chart couldn’t get them to realise that “Steam = better”, much like how they still can’t explain to anyone that “anti-piracy DRM = useless” (assuming they’ve actually tried to, of course).
On a semi-related note and to harken back to our previous chats on the matter I just thought of us having cited Zenimax. What we both forgot at the time is that Zenimax have already tentatively dipped their toe in that water because The Elder Scrolls Online isn’t solely a Steam release. It can also be purchased from and played through Bethesda’s own online gaming network bypassing Steam altogether.
Sure, but then again, U-BE-SOFT has likewise made their games available on uPlay for how many years, now. Rocksh*t’s Social Club likewise also sells Rocksh*t games, etc.
I mean, yeah, it is a half-step, but it’s only important on a case-by-case basis, to be fair, since I can’t see U-BE-SOFT ever dropping Steam – as much as they’d love to.
Likewise, Activision hasn’t tried to move Call of Duty off of Steam (yet), but they are skipping it entirely with Destiny 2, so you can definitely see that it’s on their mind, even though it’ll never happen after D2 fails epically, gloriously & hilariously.
….. Unless they try to bring back that Call of Duty Social Media platform? LOL.
Witnessing Destiny 2 fail on a scale similar to that of No Man’s Sky, CoD Infinite Warfare, Quantum Break, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Mafia III, Battleborn, etc. would be a hoot!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bca850088c8266488d52f5c8208168bdb2c12ed54b7d4ac8ba345fe2594a9036.jpg
Perfectly natural, mate!
My only sadness is that Destiny 2 isn’t a Windows 10 Store UWP exclusive because its demise would then be even more sweet.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/669105c1937150ce4609412293436b1ecb37212efaa195372fb65d09c67a2fec.jpg
Imagine if each of them has 125m users like Steam though, imagine making bank on nearly all 125m, that would be absolutely insane in terms of profits.
Way too out there, mate 😛 Even Steam’s user base is extremely diverse, which is why you can only get a few million sales on average out of your standard AAA – assuming it’s not a giant turd, that is.
I like to have all my games in one place.
GOG reminds of a past days of downloading, installing and patching games by myself…
Oh how I hated those days!
Now I just need to hit that play button. Steam install the game and run!
ez pz!
GOG Galaxy works well, GOG actually listens to its customers, and DRM-free.
Indeed. And I loved GOG Galaxy! haha
Too bad I wont install 2 games client!
I have to install Steam, but I like Galaxy.
I have 23 games on GOG Galaxy, Witcher 3 for one!
I LIKE to install STEAM and I like GOG galaxy!
769 games on Steam…Never had any big issue. And I dont care about DRM free.
I use Netflix(DRM), Spotify(Drm), Steam(soft DRM), Safari Books(DRM)
I have a similar investment in Steam — they hooked me with their early sales, and now, so many games are Steam-only — but I don’t like renting my games.
You can back up every game on STEAM…
You have no access to your games if Steam denies it to you.
That would be a first!
Some users have been locked out of their accounts.
Have you considered what would become of your collection if Valve ever went out of business? I asked them about that years ago (before making any kind of investment in them), and they replied that they would take care of us if it ever got to that point.
Companies always keep their word.
That is their fault!
I bet that Sony, EA, MS and UBI will shut down years before STEAM…
Back on-topic: You don’t own your Steam games.
okay GOG boy, whatever!
GOG
So, I point out that you don’t own your Steam games, and you resort to name-calling?
(At least that’s a compliment.)
Have some dignity.
GOG FTW lmaaaaaaaaoooooooo
Thanks for proving my point.
Gaben lovely, with power o’er all,
Beseech I thee, answer my call,
Before you a worm crawls, wretched and small.
See my previous reply.
ouch…that hurted!
I’m sure that Gabe will make the pain go away.
Yep. He just cured me while I was playing HL2 for the 7th time! haha
That’ll do it.
Praise the sun!
You’re getting warmer.
Theres a bunch of EA games I would have bought if avaiable on STEAM! …
I only have STEAM installed cause I VALUE a minimal set up!
I feel ya. I would have bought Titanfall 1 and 2 for sure.
yup and i wouldnt have bought a console either
I would buy a PS4 for ND and Soft games.
I dont really care that much about EA and Ubi games…
ea doesnt have any good games left anymore, or games making money like say titanfall. The only thing they got left is battlefield.
no, i’m all for origin
keep EA’s trash in one designated $hitting store
nhl series perfect example
EA would prefer to make 100% of the profit off of like 80% less game sales than they would to make 70% off of that vastly higher number.
Everytime I cringe when developers/publishers refuse to release their games on pc by thinking it will give them more profit 😀
Big pubs always favor the side of CONTROL. If they release their games on console, it’s a very strict, controlled eco-system where they can negotiate with Sony or Microsoft on how best to limit and regulate the delivery of content to best maximize profits, which is their prerogative and I have no issue with, but consumers don’t always get the best product that way.
PC gaming is–and has always been–the Wild West; there’s no real top-down governance(Steam/Valve is the closest thing) but manipulation of content, of IP in regards to modding, free user-generated content made off of the backs of base games, is GREAT for consumers but less appealing to these big, control-freak organizations.
It’s why I started PC gaming in the 90s and haven’t gamed exclusively on a console since the SNES. (I got my kids a 360+PS3 around 10 years ago but played them sparingly; it’s not the same as PC gaming)
Very interesting a good insight indeed, never thought that deeply about it all of how it works :O
The only three things I think deeply about are boobs and games.
😀
You can still talk to the individual publishers / developers of the game.
Thats impressive for sure.
How is possible that sony say they have 70 million monthly active players if steam have 67 million monthly active players? it sounds me like a lie from sony.
i dont think ps4 player active users monthly is the same as pc.
Sony being disingenuous in their presentation of statistics? Surely not!
both.
i doubt these statistics are accurate on a day to day use
but i’m figuring that they’re pretty neck and neck, a lot of people bought a PC but kept their peasant-station for the exclusives
ea is promoting their own monopoly we dont like it.
At least until a better alternative comes along, yeah.
“Source: Gamespot”
I’ll be viewing the source article’s comments section later so to bathe in the salty tears of the peasantry!
GOG? i mean they got metro, they got witcher, they got indie games
they’re basically steam without the DRM and the mountain of early access crap
Was going to comment on this too. It leads to an interesting question: Monopolies tend to be bad and they should be discouraged, but Valve’s monopoly with Steam doesn’t seem to be hurting customers. So, would it be a slippery slope to pick and choose which monopolies should be allowed? Or is Steam somehow a different sort of monopoly or not technically one at all?
Regarding it being a monopoly: While you can go elsewhere for games, if the vast majority of PC gamers will just use Steam, it discourages developers/publishers from doing the work to release their games on other digital PC stores, which would make it hard for other stores to compete and limits your choice as a consumer if you wanted to avoid Steam completely. Monopolies aren’t just about having no other options.
That said, I don’t care, on a personal level. Steam seems like they have done right by their customers and there’s no signs that will change. But if Valve did turn evil one day…
Valve is an acceptable monopoly (yes, it’s definitely a monopoly), much like how Steam is an acceptable form of DRM. As for discouraging the competition; eh. EA launched Origin in a terrible state & tried to force it onto us regardless by making it the only place where one can buy EA-published titles digitally.
That is to say, the only people in this industry big enough to take on Valve & Steam don’t care about quality, quality of life, user experience etc. anywhere near as much as they care about the most cost-efficient way of forcing you onto the platform of their choice. As a result, they’re never going to be able to take on Steam & they seem to have all but accepted this, which is why now they’re instead trying to get their customers off of Steam completely by replacing it with their own walled off clients, Microsoft & Blizzard-style.
IF one wanted to unseat Steam & Valve they’d definitely have a hard job ahead of them indeed, but it is doable, so long as one is willing to invest the necessary effort into such a behemoth-scale project. Otherwise, they’re doomed to end up as pathetic, pointless & useless as uPlay is.
Sadly, while Valve does mostly do right by their customers, the lack of competition has caused them to stagnate considerably, so I would actually encourage some sort of real competitor to Steam to rise, even if only for the sake of getting them off their lazy bungholes.
That is true. Makes me wonder if that’s why none of Steam’s competitors have complained about their monopoly: Because Steam’s dominance is less to do with Steam having anti-competitive practices and the like, and more to do with the competition’s own incompetence.
That said, I remember reading someone’s comment who did the math and determined that a publisher selling significantly fewer copies on their own store was more profitable than selling on Steam because of the 30% Valve skims off the top. So maybe UPlay and Origin aren’t even trying to actually compete. Maybe if Steam reduced their cut enough we’d actually see UPlay and Origin disappear. And GoG has its own niches (DRM-free, old games, etc.), so they might not care all too much about overtaking Steam either.
GOG can’t overtake Steam, but what they do, they do beautifully.
(And they do have some of the newer titles.)
Partly their own incompetence, partly their disinterest, partly their idiocy, I suppose. I mean, it’s basically routine for these people to leave money behind on the table in favour of pursuing anti-consumer activities, instead.
But yeah, that 30% is a real killer. uPlay isn’t trying to compete as much as accompany I believe, whereas EA intended for Origin to be a direct competitor from the very beginning, thus why they pulled all of their games off of Steam in order to redirect as much of that business as possible onto Origin, instead.
As such, I doubt if EA will ever abandon Origin even if Valve drops their cut down to 5% or so, since they’ve also expanded to selling other publisher’s games, unlike how uPlay has remained exclusive to U-BE-SOFT games. It’s the same with uPlay; U-BE-SOFT has these better sales on uPlay which they use to redirect as many potential sales as possible to their platform instead, so I doubt if that’ll stop, even if Valve does drop their distribution cut.
And yeah, GOG has its own niches to fill, so if anything they might compete with Steam on the indie & old school games front, but they’ll never be a publisher’s go-to store so long as they remain anti-DRM while the publishers continue to howl about piracy & whatnot.
Steam is DRM, but it’s not a monopoly (and they’re terrible at customer service). That’s what Newell was freaking out about with his Steam Machine; he was terrified that Microsoft was going to shut out all other sources of games from Windows besides the Windows Store.
As long as a PC gamer can go to other sources to buy games, Steam is not a monopoly.
True, Steam is no longer a monopoly in the sense of it no longer controls 100% of the entire digital PC marketplace, but it does still take a distribution cut out of the overwhelming majority of all digital sales, to be fair.
But yeah, you’re right, it dominates the industry, but it’s not quite a monopoly per-se, my bad.
Your cult still stands. 🙂
Yeah baby, I’m just that good ^^
🙂
Manufacturers aren’t customers! They’re…… business partners? I guess. Or, something.
Though to be fair in regards to Greenlight, they themselves have admitted that the project was (is) a failure, so they’ve been looking into sequel projects for a while, now. But, of course, you know….. “Valve Time.”
Ugh, those stupid Trading Cards.
Every newest record is 125 million. The total users is closer to 175 million now because it was definitely at 125 million over a year ago.