But the really interesting stuff is on the macro scale, as it shows that Steam users spent just 15% of their total playing time in games that launched in 2024. 47% of the total playing time on Steam was spent on games released in the last one to seven years,
while a sizeable 37% of time was spent in games that have been out for eight years or more.
So what do we make of all this? Are people just not buying new games any more? No, that's probably not the case. In fact, that 15% is a significant increase over the 9% of playtime spent in 2023 on new games released that year (though it's down on the 17% of time folks spent in new games in 2022). So 2024 has actually seen a bit of a bounceback from last year, possibly driven by the popularity of new online games like Helldivers 2, Delta Force, and, uhhh, the
free-to-play super-sensation that is Banana. On the singleplayer front, simian action-adventure Black Myth: Wukong has led the charge with some eye-watering concurrent player numbers on
Steamcharts.
