cube wrote:Kyle Orland at ars did some major, major number crunching on the publicly available steam info, and came up with this:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/0...
There are a few issues, especially with Steam under-reporting or flat out failing to report playtimes, but the methodology seems fairly sound, especially because their estimates seem to match what was announced. Also, the fact that the stat tracking is only from 2009 onwards hurts a lot of early releases.
The interesting here is that a lot of things devs have said that people question, like more people playing CoD single player instead of multiplayer, is shown in the numbers.
Also, Football Manager is the favorite game for the people who play it.
That is incredibly interesting. Thanks for sharing!
I know the Steam stats have been used for a while to crunch numbers for GDC presentations, but I think this is the first time any journalist has actually gone ahead and done it. Great idea.
Its surprising how dominated that list is by Valve games. Non valve games must be much more spread across competing storefronts than I thought. It's not surprising that most of those valve games have been giving away for free at some point or another.
No, clearly there's a lot of you crazies out there :p
I think the Football Manager players are alt-tabbing to the farming sim as a break from watching soccer.
Clearly something is wrong with their data. I'm pretty sure Crusader Kings 2 should be in those graphs but it's not. Shenanigans!
I'm pleased but surprised to see Saints Row IV on there. It's an amazing game, but it's also not the sort of thing that you can play more-or-less indefinitely like your Civilizations or your Skyrims or your Terrarrias. You play it, you experience the content, you're done, typically.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/introducing-steam-gauge-ars-reveals-steams-most-popular-games/
OR
"I told you I wasn't crazy!"
I'm pleased but surprised to see Saints Row IV on there. It's an amazing game, but it's also not the sort of thing that you can play more-or-less indefinitely like your Civilizations or your Skyrims or your Terrarrias. You play it, you experience the content, you're done, typically.
Sure, it's not an "indefinite" game, but the number is just 19 hours. That seems like a perfectly normal amount of time for someone to play through the game's main missions and a good bit of the activities on the side.
hbi2k wrote:I'm pleased but surprised to see Saints Row IV on there. It's an amazing game, but it's also not the sort of thing that you can play more-or-less indefinitely like your Civilizations or your Skyrims or your Terrarrias. You play it, you experience the content, you're done, typically.
Sure, it's not an "indefinite" game, but the number is just 19 hours. That seems like a perfectly normal amount of time for someone to play through the game's main missions and a good bit of the activities on the side.
Sure, but 19 is just the median, meaning that there were enough people out there playing for 40 hours to balance out the ones who booted it up, played for five minutes, and then never went back to it (because they didn't care for it or their PC couldn't run it well or something else came out or whatever). This pleases me.
Sure, but 19 is just the median, meaning that there were enough people out there playing for 40 hours to balance out
/me raises hand
Not quite 40, but I did play SR4 for about 30 hours. This came after playing SR3 for 70 hours two years prior. 
What's interesting about those Steam numbers is that for SteamWorks games, we now know exactly how many PC copies of each game were sold.
Clearly something is wrong with their data. I'm pretty sure Crusader Kings 2 should be in those graphs but it's not. Shenanigans!
Eh, CK2 is a game that a lot of people either bounce off of in the first few hours, or play it forever. I couldn't play more than a couple of hours myself.
I think it's more of a testament to Paradox's interface and game design changes in EU4 more than anything else.
EU has a much larger install base too. And the Steam release came months after the original CK2 launch, so I'm not too sure how many people double dipped.
Sony at 7M PS4s and Microsoft at 5M Xbox Ones..both outselling previous gen at this timeframe.. look forward to further conversations about how Microsoft is doomed.
Sony at 7M PS4s sold and Microsoft at 5M Xbox Ones shipped..both outselling previous gen at this timeframe.. look forward to further conversations about how Microsoft is doomed.
I believe there was a minor difference in the two sets of numbers.
But the whole generation is doomed, clearly.
I read the Ars Technica article and found it fascinating. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good feel for how healthy the PC market is. One one hand, you have about 127 million Steam players, many of whom are willing to sink many hours into their favorite games. On the other, the most popular games tend to be dominated by Valve, and there's evidence that many of the Indy/mid-tier games sell poorly and are rarely played. PC gaming seems to be as dependent on a few major titles as consoles.
I'm also glad that having a pile problem is a very common problem.
I read the Ars Technica article and found it fascinating. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good feel for how healthy the PC market is. One one hand, you have about 127 million Steam players, many of whom are willing to sink many hours into their favorite games. On the other, the most popular games tend to be dominated by Valve, and there's evidence that many of the Indy/mid-tier games sell poorly and are rarely played. PC gaming seems to be as dependent on a few major titles as consoles.
I'm also glad that having a pile problem is a very common problem.
They put out a follow up article that makes more sense to me. Because games pre-2009 weren't tracked they've removed games from before 2009 from many of their charts.
The biggest change in the actual data comes in the aggregated distribution of hours played. Restricting these charts to games with a release date after March of 2009 (i.e. the ones we have a "complete" gameplay picture of) shows that only 26.1 percent of registered copies are sitting unplayed, as you can see above, rather than the 36.9 percent cited in the original article.
Yes, TF2 and DOTA are still titanic, however I think this shows people are playing games more than the original article implied. I'm not poo pooing the whole article, just that the extremes they found are probably a bit reduced.
Also
In the case of a game like Dota 2, time spent spectating other matches is also showed as "gameplay," which can be considered a skew in the data as well.
Yup.
Sony at 7M PS4s and Microsoft at 5M Xbox Ones..both outselling previous gen at this timeframe.. look forward to further conversations about how Microsoft is doomed.
It's funny how you create the very thing you want to avoid by complaining about it before it's actually happened.
I think it's encouraging that new consoles are selling faster than their last-gen counterparts did. On the other hand, I think Sony and Microsoft are both doing a way better job getting units out the door and avoiding the heavy shortages we saw last time. It remains to be seen if this indicates a strong market or if we're still in the early adopters honeymoon phase.
TheGameguru wrote:Sony at 7M PS4s and Microsoft at 5M Xbox Ones..both outselling previous gen at this timeframe.. look forward to further conversations about how Microsoft is doomed.
It's funny how you create the very thing you want to avoid by complaining about it before it's actually happened.
Guru loves to put out flame bait so that he can later label anyone that posts a negative comment with his favorite derogatory phrase.
Angry Internet Men
I'll avoid getting personal.. but would hope that something is done about that.
It's funny how you create the very thing you want to avoid by complaining about it before it's actually happened.
Tongue in cheek is tongue in cheek.. clearly the commentary about the doom of Microsoft is reserved for other sites. I don't seriously believe we would see that kind of talk on this site. Microsoft is actually right now enjoying a company wide rebound.. I mean even their stock is above $40!! The release of Office for the iPad is a significant leap forward in their overall thinking and strategy which appears to have encouraged Investors to remember just how much money this company still generates.
My point is that outselling (shipping) ahead of the previous generation isn't exactly dismissive news for either camp.. but directly addresses other sites talk of Microsoft giving up on the Console biz.
I hear Lync is also doing quite well.
On the other, the most popular games tend to be dominated by Valve, and there's evidence that many of the Indy/mid-tier games sell poorly and are rarely played. PC gaming seems to be as dependent on a few major titles as consoles.
There are, of course, a few caveats to that data: hours played wasn't tracked until 2009, and Valve games are more likely to dominate the top ten because you must have Steam to play them while you can get other games on other services.
But, it doesn't surprise me in the least that PC gaming is anchored by a few sales juggernauts, just like consoles. The barrier to entry on PC is significantly lower, but there's a lot more competition for those mid-tier dollars, and casual players are more likely to pick up big name games than smaller ones.
I hear Lync is also doing quite well.
jdzappa wrote:On the other, the most popular games tend to be dominated by Valve, and there's evidence that many of the Indy/mid-tier games sell poorly and are rarely played. PC gaming seems to be as dependent on a few major titles as consoles.
There are, of course, a few caveats to that data: hours played wasn't tracked until 2009, and Valve games are more likely to dominate the top ten because you must have Steam to play them while you can get other games on other services.
But, it doesn't surprise me in the least that PC gaming is anchored by a few sales juggernauts, just like consoles. The barrier to entry on PC is significantly lower, but there's a lot more competition for those mid-tier dollars, and casual players are more likely to pick up big name games than smaller ones.
Lync is like ICQ for grownups.
ClockworkHouse wrote:I hear Lync is also doing quite well.
jdzappa wrote:On the other, the most popular games tend to be dominated by Valve, and there's evidence that many of the Indy/mid-tier games sell poorly and are rarely played. PC gaming seems to be as dependent on a few major titles as consoles.
There are, of course, a few caveats to that data: hours played wasn't tracked until 2009, and Valve games are more likely to dominate the top ten because you must have Steam to play them while you can get other games on other services.
But, it doesn't surprise me in the least that PC gaming is anchored by a few sales juggernauts, just like consoles. The barrier to entry on PC is significantly lower, but there's a lot more competition for those mid-tier dollars, and casual players are more likely to pick up big name games than smaller ones.
Lync is like ICQ for grownups.
Does ICQ even exist these days?
Does ICQ even exist these days?
Believe it or not, it does. A Russian company bought it in 2010 -- I wonder whether it's like LiveJournal now, big in Russia but basically abandoned everywhere else.
(If LJ is even still big in Russia, that is. I have no real idea.)
Lync is like ICQ for grownups.
But is it any good?
Tanglebones wrote:Lync is like ICQ for grownups.
But is it any good?
At least as good as GWJ Meme Simulator 2009.
There are, of course, a few caveats to that data: hours played wasn't tracked until 2009, and Valve games are more likely to dominate the top ten because you must have Steam to play them while you can get other games on other services.
This is true however I feel that more and more games I purchase at Amazon and GMG in the last few years have Steam DRM and require it. For those titles it would still be reflected in the data no matter where they were purchased. Just looking at that list I'm pretty sure Civ 5, Xcom, Skyrim, Saints Row 4 and Total War reflect all copies sold. (I could be wrong)
ClockworkHouse wrote:There are, of course, a few caveats to that data: hours played wasn't tracked until 2009, and Valve games are more likely to dominate the top ten because you must have Steam to play them while you can get other games on other services.
This is true however I feel that more and more games I purchase at Amazon and GMG in the last few years have Steam DRM and require it. For those titles it would still be reflected in the data no matter where they were purchased. Just looking at that list I'm pretty sure Civ 5, Xcom, Skyrim, and Total War reflect all copies sold. (I could be wrong)
Oh, definitely. Anything SteamWorks will have their entire PC sales numbers represented in that data. But it's hard to gauge the health of the PC market as a whole (which is what jdzappa had mentioned) when things like StarCraft 2 and Minecraft are excluded.
EvilDead wrote:ClockworkHouse wrote:There are, of course, a few caveats to that data: hours played wasn't tracked until 2009, and Valve games are more likely to dominate the top ten because you must have Steam to play them while you can get other games on other services.
This is true however I feel that more and more games I purchase at Amazon and GMG in the last few years have Steam DRM and require it. For those titles it would still be reflected in the data no matter where they were purchased. Just looking at that list I'm pretty sure Civ 5, Xcom, Skyrim, and Total War reflect all copies sold. (I could be wrong)
Oh, definitely. Anything SteamWorks will have their entire PC sales numbers represented in that data. But it's hard to gauge the health of the PC market as a whole (which is what jdzappa had mentioned) when things like StarCraft 2 and Minecraft are excluded.
Yep, well I think its safe to assume that both those games sell bajillions.
ClockworkHouse wrote:StarCraft 2 and Minecraft are excluded.
Yep, well I think its safe to assume that both those games sell bajillions.
Well 35 million in the case of Minecraft, which is better than even Dota 2. That's just crazy. The article did precede all their data presentation with acknowledging the existence of all the other services and how that essentially makes their numbers not fully accurate.
Also, a number of indie games may be Steamworks, but still exist with DRM free / Desura versions, like FEZ. It has Steam achievements, leaderboards and cloud support, but can be downloaded DRM free from the dev's site if you buy it there (and get a Steam key).
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