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Steam 1998 to 2015 Million Sellers: LTD Data from SteamSpy
- Thread starter Kyougar
- Start date
Regarding free weekends: We know for a fact that all free weekends before September 2014 no longer affect these numbers, since that was the last time Call of Duty: Ghosts Multiplayer was free. Since the singleplayer and multiplayer are returning identical ownership numbers, all trace of the free weekend is gone.
Compare that to Advanced Warfare, which has 1.5 million Multi owners but only 800K single player owners, so six weeks on from its last free weekend (19th February) there is still a large discrepancy in the numbers.
Compare that to Advanced Warfare, which has 1.5 million Multi owners but only 800K single player owners, so six weeks on from its last free weekend (19th February) there is still a large discrepancy in the numbers.
I know that PC gaming is rising and all that stuff.
But
There are only 26 titles, on the biggest PC store by far who has dominated the market in the last years, who surpassed 5 million sales.
I'm not even considering bundles and their average price, I have 200 games on steam and I've paid them less than 200$ in total.
How many full priced videogames sold more than 5 millions copies on consoles in the last 5 years?
But
There are only 26 titles, on the biggest PC store by far who has dominated the market in the last years, who surpassed 5 million sales.
I'm not even considering bundles and their average price, I have 200 games on steam and I've paid them less than 200$ in total.
How many full priced videogames sold more than 5 millions copies on consoles in the last 5 years?
alexandros
Banned
That is an interesting question that I would indeed like to see answered. How many games surpassed 5 million sales on a single console platform in the last, say, five years?
For instance there is this wikipedia entry that states that only seven 360 games have surpassed the five million mark:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Xbox_360_video_games
Huh. Interesting. Not to mention that many PC best sellers like Minecraft, Starcraft and Diablo are absent from Steam. Not bad, eh?
it's nice to see the plattform doing well.. though i doubt it's as positive as the list would suggest..
Alot of those games on the list sold for less than 5 bucks during sales.. i wouldn't doubt that the majority of titles would never reach even half of the numbers if it wasn't for that... like i said not bad numbers.. but it's not indicative of how much of a success the game was in terms of money earned for the publisher.
Alot of those games on the list sold for less than 5 bucks during sales.. i wouldn't doubt that the majority of titles would never reach even half of the numbers if it wasn't for that... like i said not bad numbers.. but it's not indicative of how much of a success the game was in terms of money earned for the publisher.
It's important to remember that the most popular PC games outside of a select few generally aren't on Steam.
Yup. Minecraft is about to hit 20M copies on PC alone, and it hasn't been cheaper than $20 in the past 3.5 years. Pretty much everything by Blizzard sells more than 5M copies as well. That doesn't even get into F2P stuff.
As far as revenue goes, people should remember that publishers are only getting about $25 of your $60 spend on a retail game. Their cut on the same $60 game on Steam is $42.
CosmicQueso
Member
High prices are always a bad thing until Console fans want to take a dig at sales on the PC.
Consoles aren't going away anytime soon. You guys can relax.
Consoles aren't going away anytime soon. You guys can relax.
alexandros
Banned
Here's what's making me doubt that you're actually glad to see the platform doing well. You take into account that part of the sales are at a discounted level but you don't mention the fact that all digital PC sales have a much larger profit margin for the developer/publisher than a retail game.
We will know how Sales influence owner-data in the next sales.
But which of those "alot" games sold their numbers under 5 Dollar? Sales have a big Impact, no doubt. Nevertheless, its quit reaching to state that the majority of the games on this list wouldnt even reach half of these numbers. And its reaching to declare otherwise. We dont know. We are in an Infancy state at the moment and only time will tell.
What we do know, is that a Sale does not warrent success. A F2P Game warrents no success. Or we would see more games with million-ownership.
We have enough success Stories of games with 250k to 500k to 1 Million sales without a sale or max 15% Sale.
That list is not updated.
Also I made it fair not considered the average price game are sold on Steam.
Which numbers aren't accurate in that list?
Also, what is the average price games are sold on steam? That's a stat I'd like to know, I don't think I've seen it before.
Sportbilly
Member
As the data matures, it'll be interesting to see what sort of sales the next few big releases (e.g. GTA 5, Witcher 3) get during their first month. Considering Skyline has sold over 800K already, I'd be surprised if GTA 5 didn't easily top a million.
All in all though, it shows the PC is in rude health, especially with the biggest PC games- like Diablo 3, Minecraft, World of Warcraft, LOL, World of Tanks, Crossfire etc etc- not even on Steam. It's particularly encouraging that the list isn't dominated by a few mega-franchises either, like CoD and Halo do on consoles.
All in all though, it shows the PC is in rude health, especially with the biggest PC games- like Diablo 3, Minecraft, World of Warcraft, LOL, World of Tanks, Crossfire etc etc- not even on Steam. It's particularly encouraging that the list isn't dominated by a few mega-franchises either, like CoD and Halo do on consoles.
True, until 2014-2016. Believe.
Valve are ashamed of it
ehmm yeah i'm glad that the platform is doing well.. i don't care about whether you doubt that or not..
i have over 250 games on Steam.. most of them (i'd say 70-80%) i got for a small fraction of the retail price. That's how i know that the publishers didn't get the money they'd get if i bought it at normal price. the Profit margin is irrelevant if your game was bought at 5-10 bucks and not 50
Maybe under 5 dollars was a bit exaggerated for many titles but most games on the list you could get at a maximum of 10 dollars on sales.. (basically any title that is older than 2 years and isn't CoD)
There is no doubt on my mind that games like Mirror's Edge , Darksiders, Alan Wake, and many more would not have reached around 2 million in sales if they weren't heavily discounted.. I think i got ME and Alan Wake for under 5 Euros if my memory doesn't fail me.
Sportbilly
Member
Sergey Galyonkin, the guy who owns the site, was in communication with another guy from SteamDB, and was informed of some undocumented API methods which allow TF2 and DOTA 2 data to be collected. They're both now on Steam Spy-
DOTA 2- Owners: 18,916,407 ± 315,625
Players in the last 2 weeks: 3,426,560 ± 139,236 (18.11%)
TF2- Owners: 10,692,663 ± 241,936
Players in the last 2 weeks: 855,892 ± 69,986 (8%)
Dictator93
Member
Am I crazy or did the thread title change?
Yeah it changed. I forgot to manually search for games older than 2008. Now its included till 1998.
Both these games have incomplete data currently, it'll be 3 days before we can use them for anything.
KillerMan91
Member
That list is hilariously out of date. There has been for example 5 different CODs during last 5 years alone that have passed 5 million mark on X360 (and on PS3). There are dozens of games on consoles that have passed 5 million mark during last 5 years. Far more than on PC if that Steam list is any indication.
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Steam_Web_API#GetOwnedGames_.28v0001.29
It's very much documented.
Edit: It's somewhat outdated, most F2P are not owned by default anymore, but added to account when installed for first time.
alexandros
Banned
OK, then someone should find out what these games are and post them because I very much doubt that there have been dozens of game that surpassed five million sales on any single console platform.
KillerMan91
Member
My list since 2010 (home consoles) :
Gran Turismo 5 (PS3) (Over 10 million according polyphony)
God of War III (PS3) (Over 5 million according to Sony)
FIFA 11 (PS3) (sells over 15 million each year on all platforms and PS3 was the dominant platform in Europe for last gen)
FIFA 12 (PS3) (..)
FIFA 13 (PS3) (..)
FIFA 14 (PS3) (..)
The Last of Us (PS3) (over 7 million before remaster)
Uncharted 3 (PS3) (Uncharted games have hit 17 million so UC3 is definitely over 5 million)
Halo Reach (X360) (Halo games have sold over 50 million, each mainline entry is probably over 10 million)
Halo 4 (X360) (..)
Kinect Adventures (X360) (over 20 million)
Minecraft (X360) (Over 12 million on X360)
Gears of War 3 (X360) ( Total sales for gears of war franchise were around 19 million couple of years away)
Skyrim (X360) (game has shipped over 20 million copies on all platforms)
Just Dance 2 (Wii) (over 5 million according Nintendo)
Just Dance 3 (Wii) ( over 7 million for all plaftroms with Wii taking majority of sales with these games)
Wii Party (Wii) (around 8 million according Nintendo)
Zumba Fitness (Wii) (Over 6 million after its launch quarter and Wii was by far most dominant platform for these games
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
Call of Duty Black ops (PS3 and X360) (COD games sell over 20 million each year)
Call of Duty Modern warfare 3 (PS3 and X360)
Call of Duty Black Ops 2 (PS3 and X360)
Call of Duty Ghosts (PS3 and X360)
GTA V (X360, PS3 and PS4) (I guess this doesn't need explanation....)
Read Dead Redemption (PS3 and X360) (over 13 million shipped as of 2012)
Assassin's Creed III (PS3 and X360) (Shipped over 12 million during its launch quarter)
Battlefield 3 (PS3 and X360) (Sold over 20 million on all platforms)
Very likely:
Skyrim (PS3)
Call of Duty Advanced Warfare (Xbox one, PS4 and X360)
Destiny (PS4)
FIFA 15 (PS4)
My list regarding of multiplatform games is mostly based on total shipments for those games and then looking at the financials of the publishers where PS3 and X360 made pretty much same amount of money every quarter. If game has shipped something like 12 million it's very likely that it's 5 million seller on both platforms (or at least on one). Might even miss some games as we don't get shipment data for some games. Also if you include handhelds there is even more.
alexandros
Banned
Thanks for going to the trouble of collecting the data, very interesting! Now of course with most of these numbers there's the issue of shipped vs sold but it's not that important in the end because even with your list it's clear than no single console platform has more five-million sellers than Steam. You have to add all console platforms together to beat the PC numbers and even then, 16 of the games on your list were never released on PC so we have no idea how well they would sell on the platform.
So I'd say that this makes Steam's numbers even more impressive. You have to add up three hugely successful console platforms and their first party exclusives in order to match the sales of Steam, a service based on a platform that the industry proclaimed dead at some point. Not to mention that Steam is missing some really big games (EA games, Blizzard games, Mine craft etc.)
MaverickHunterX
Member
I'm surprised Prey isn't on the list. Wasn't it true that it sold so many copies on Steam that they ran out of individual codes?
Maybe I misheard...
Maybe I misheard...
texhnolyze
Banned
I'd rather let them see it that way. Let the stereotype lives on.
"PC gaming is dead" is a music to my ears.
I think publishers can generate unlimited amount of keys on Steam.
Doesn't seem like prey is on SteamSpy at all.
Free weekends will do that but MOW series have always been a PC gem. I spent hundreds of hours with it as well as with it's predecessor, Faces of War. Community mods were so sophisticated, before I dug in deeper I was convinced it was part of the original release back then. Still play FOW now and then, people still host matches now, nearly a decade later.
Eh, wished there was a more accurate way of checking.
Because :
isn't as close to Facepunch's sales figures as I'd like.
And that margin is without the free weekend [x], no?
Because :
Code:
11 Nov 29, 2006 $9.99 N/A 8,566,169 ±156,333 Garry's ModAnd that margin is without the free weekend [x], no?
The effects of free weekends last for ~5 months apparently, so I'm not sure when the last one for gmod was.
KillerMan91
Member
From my list:
PS3:
15 to 16 5 million sellers since 2010
X360:
13 to 14 5 million sellers since 2010
Steam:
12 5 million sellers since 2010 (not to mention some of those titles being F2P)
Of course this is not to say that Steam numbers are not impressive and there has been definitely a lot of growth but still as a overall consoles move a lot more traditional software than Steam ( and PC). Of course saying that PC gaming is dead has always been false and if you include all MMOs etc. it's doing most money worldwide.
Is this true though? Even if the top-end products move more units on consoles, there were 3827 releases on Steam since 2010, so it makes sense for sales to be split over a larger number of releases. Also, some "traditional" releases which were 5 million sellers are not on Steam (Diablo 3 comes to mind immediately).
KillerMan91
Member
Well if I remember right there was that 900 million figure floating around in other Steam sales thread for total sw sales in Steam since its launch(?). Each of the three home consoles shipped around 900 million units of sw last gen. That makes 2.7 billion sw sales for home consoles. Add handhelds (DS 1 billion and PSP around 300 million) and you get 4 billion units of sw sold last gen on consoles. I don't think you get anywhere close to that even if you count releases outside of Steam like Diablo etc.
Edit. it seems the op has 1,124,722,105 for Steam since 2008. Could be somewhere 1.4 billion from 2005 perhaps (there are a lot of F2P titles that make it hard to do direct comparisons though).
Basing an argument on a "900 million in sales since launch of steam" with no source is a bit silly. Even sillier is then putting all the consoles and portables sw sales, again without sources, together as an amalgam to make the point that Steam then doesn't sell as much
What's the point
KillerMan91
Member
People directly asking is it true that consoles still move more tradiotional sw. In that case yes you combine all consoles. Data for Sony and Nintendo total software is from their financials and for MS estimated from the fact that it has pretty much followed PS3 in terms of hw and sw sales (MS has never released sw shipment data).
alexandros
Banned
No, you absolutely do not. Each console is a totally different platform, every machine is incompatible with each other, you can't just throw in all console platforms and handhelds and call it a day.
I don't think anyone is questioning all console skus sw sales vs PC (even when dealing with total sw sale with no source for PC). The question I see posited by Durante, I read as for individual consoles, which actually holds some meaning since games are developed and sold per platform SKU and not as an amalgam.
My point was, what is the point of arguing all vs one in terms of platforms, when no company exists to benefit from that. Even as an argument of "console industry vs PC industry", what is the point when they are so utterly different as industries. As far as gaming goes, it makes more sense to me to look at it per SKU.
KillerMan91
Member
Well i guess i depends on how you view it. Most publishers see PS and Xbox pretty much as a one platform when they make games for them (pretty much same customer base buying same kind of games). Nintendo overall is little different though and yes handhelds are completely different market.
Well in my original post that Durante quoted I said ''a overall consoles move a lot more traditional software than Steam '' and he quoted '' Is it true?'' So I got the impression that he asked did all consoles move more sw than Steam and PC. As a individual platform yes Steam holds pretty well against any console nowadays if you want to just compare them.
Does this include Multiplatform releases? Do we have sources that a multiplatformrelease achieved 5 million Sales on its own on the 360 or PS3? If a Title shipped 12 Million Units, you have to remove PC Sales (Steam AND other PC Software Sales if its not Steamworks) and then you have to look at the platform Split. If a Title has 15 Million shipped and we take 4 Million for PC, we have 11 Million, but it could be 7 for 360 and 4 for PS3 or the other way.
The 900 Million Figure was from 2008 to 2015. From 1998 to 2015 we have over 1,1 Billion Owners (its in the OP) Just for the Steam Store
The question was more about per platform. Yes, when you combine 5 platforms against the PC then they are likely to sell more software. Nobody cares about 5 or 3 or 2 vs 1 situations. It's not noteworthy when a couple of platforms sell more than a single one.
Moreover, you frame the argument in 'traditional' software but the overall number you cite for each console includes a host of games that aren't 'traditional' and hence you can't know what the 'real' number is. You need to filter out the music games, the dance games, the party games, the casual games and i will also include sports games in there. Sport games might be 'traditional' in the sense of them always being around but the success or failure of that segment never influences 'core'\traditional games this forum likes.
Seeing how many of per-console-platform 5M+ unit sales for games are thanks to yearly sport games and mainstream titles makes the list not that impressive. You could also argue how many of those 5M sellers are part of few franchises, while the Steam list has more ips.
Moreover, you frame the argument in 'traditional' software but the overall number you cite for each console includes a host of games that aren't 'traditional' and hence you can't know what the 'real' number is. You need to filter out the music games, the dance games, the party games, the casual games and i will also include sports games in there. Sport games might be 'traditional' in the sense of them always being around but the success or failure of that segment never influences 'core'\traditional games this forum likes.
Seeing how many of per-console-platform 5M+ unit sales for games are thanks to yearly sport games and mainstream titles makes the list not that impressive. You could also argue how many of those 5M sellers are part of few franchises, while the Steam list has more ips.
KillerMan91
Member
Well for some multiplatform games like Read Dead there were only console versions so if it has shipped 12 million it has sold pretty much 5 million per platform. For something like Assasins Creed III just look at steam sales for it ( 859,633 from steamspy) and you see how skewed some AAA releases are for consoles. If it did not hit 5 million per platform during its launch quarter (with 12 million shipment) it sure has now. Thanks for the correction regarding those total Steam sales!
I feel like you are still missing the point. Each system has a development and production cost associated with it; they are sold for their respective systems; the sales are associated with that system and against its costs for creation / distribution etc. It really doesn't matter if they "see them as one platform", as businesses and products, they are not synonymous.
I also don't read that statement as every console as amalgam - mostly because there is no sense in that categorisation, as I have been trying to demonstrate. I imediately think of each system individually. This just screams of console vs PC fanboyism to me. I have never seen the point in such a collective comparison as it represents nothing but that "team console vs team pc" crap rather than reality.
KillerMan91
Member
Well that is true too. I guess I was talking more from business point of view.
Well i guess I just then understood the original question wrong. I have no interest in console or PC wars. I just like to talk about sales (I am regular in Media Create, NPD and PAL charts threads). If someone states something I think is wrong or asks something regarding of sales and I would have information I answer.
Assassin's Creed III isn't Steam exclusive. You'd have to take a look at Uplay stats.
More Fun To Compute
Member
Steam doesn't list many of the most popular PC games like Minecraft, League or anything from Blizzard.