Player Unknown's Battlegrounds among just 3 new releases in Steam's top 12 sellers of 2017
Which games made the most fat cash in 2017 on Steam, one of the world's largest distribution networks? The answer ... probably won't surprise you.
Valve has released a stack of interesting charts detailing the success stories of Steam over the course of 2017.
The big one is what it's calling "top sellers", but which actually refers to the top 100 games by gross revenue - which is why you'll see very cheap and free-to-play games on there, as well as plenty of older games still making cash on microtransactions and DLC (or just because they're great).
While Valve has not given hard figures or even ranked the included games, it has divided them into tiers, so you can differentiate between the dozen games that made mega, mega bucks in Platinum from the mega bucks in Gold, and so on.
So, pulling the Platinum list in Valve's order of presentation, here are the top 12 games on Steam in 2017 by gross revenue:
- Counter-strike: Global Offensive
- DOTA 2
- GTA 5
- PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
- H1Z1
- Rocket League
- Divinity 2: Original Sin
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- Ark: Survival Evolved
- Ghost Recon: Wildlands
- Warframe
- Rainbow Six: Siege
Of these, only PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Divinity 2: Original Sin and Ghost Recon: Wildlands actually released in 2017, although I suppose you could argue Ark: Survival Evolved only hit full release in 2017 despite being playable for approximately forever. Check out the full list of 2017 top sellers on Steam for more.
Valve also put together a list of the best-selling new releases of each month, which you can also view on Steam, but as outlined on this Steam Community post it made the numbers dance like a weasel to give these titles their apparent due, so your mileage may vary. It's definitely worth taking a peek at the most played games of 2017 on Steam, too.
Taken together, these charts paint a pretty different picture from the new release-driven console charts cycle publishers and retail-focused analysts present us with. There's a great deal more variety, longer lifespans per title, and far less emphasis on mega-hits, for example.