Steam’s most-played games in 2016 all came out in 2015

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2016 may have been Steam’s biggest year in terms of the number of games released, but none of them topped the most-played charts.

In 2016, Steam saw more game releases than any other year. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them failed to hold players interest beyond a few short days at launch, and for some, none at all.

Data trackers at GitHyp published a few interesting details about the state of Steam’s top games in 2016. Particularity when it comes to peak player numbers and, the even more crucial, number of players per hour for each game.

Judging the games purely on their peak player numbers, we get a top five list that does include three 2016 releases in No Man’s Sky, XCOM 2, and Dark Souls 3.

The top two spots were taken up by Dota 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, to no one’s surprise. As you can see, both top games were also the top entries in 2015.

Dota 2 / 1,286,617 peak players (#1 in 2015)
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive / 845,806 peak players (#2 in 2015)
No Man’s Sky / 212,321 peak players (new)
XCOM 2 / 132,834 peak players (new)
Dark Souls 3 / 129,922 peak players (new)

All three 2016 games made a dent enough to break through the top five at their respective launches. However, when you look at the number of players per hour, the list starts to look very different.

For one thing, no 2016 game managed to chart in the top five. All of the top five are made up of 2015 games, some of which even held their spots throughout. Fallout 4, which landed in the top five in 2015, fell out hard, ending the year at no.12.
Dota 2 / 636,607 avg. players per hour (#1 in 2015)
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive / 360,600 avg. players per hour (#2 in 2015)
Team Fortress 2 / 50,802 avg. players per hour (#4 in 2015)
Grand Theft Auto 5 / 40,258 avg. players per hour (#5 in 2015)
Sid Meier’s Civilization 5 / 37,885 avg players per hour (#9 in 2015)

Interestingly, free-to-play shooter Paladins, was the year’s strongest new release based on the average of players per hour. It ranked at no.15 with an average of 22,809 per hour.

Posted:
Related Forum: PC Gaming Forum

Source: http://www.vg247.com/2017/01/11/steams-most-played-games-in-2016-all-came-out-in-2015/

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"Steam’s most-played games in 2016 all came out in 2015" :: Login/Create an Account :: 20 comments

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SakuPosted:

That great then for steam players

CykaPosted:

I guess no one likes the new games.

TomPosted:

thought league would be number 1 but dota was still a great game. insane numbers though

RobPosted:

Maggardo I'm kindly surprised Grand Theft Auto V is still doing as well as it is. I still see so many people playing it. It ended up becoming boring and repetitive for me after so long of playing it. CS:GO is a good game too, I've put a few hours into it. I could never get into Dota 2, or TF2. I've been interested in getting Sid Meier's Civilization 5 though. Dark Souls 3 looks like a bad ass game, and to no surprise No Man's Sky is on this list. It built up a lot of hype, and tons of people bought it on day 1, it was a fun game at first, but after a few hours of playing it, it became boring. And people also realized that some of the features that was promised to be in the game at launch, was not in the game and plenty of people asked for refunds. I played it for about a week, and after that, the game just got boring and I kinda regret buying the game now.


Yeah, I agree. Gta is boring now and washed up it's the same stuff over and over and playing it isn't the same for me anymore. They're focusing too much time on creating dlc and updates when they should be focusing all that on creating a new gta. But who knows when that will come out probably not for a few more years.

MaggardoPosted:

I'm kindly surprised Grand Theft Auto V is still doing as well as it is. I still see so many people playing it. It ended up becoming boring and repetitive for me after so long of playing it. CS:GO is a good game too, I've put a few hours into it. I could never get into Dota 2, or TF2. I've been interested in getting Sid Meier's Civilization 5 though. Dark Souls 3 looks like a bad ass game, and to no surprise No Man's Sky is on this list. It built up a lot of hype, and tons of people bought it on day 1, it was a fun game at first, but after a few hours of playing it, it became boring. And people also realized that some of the features that was promised to be in the game at launch, was not in the game and plenty of people asked for refunds. I played it for about a week, and after that, the game just got boring and I kinda regret buying the game now.

ReevyPosted:

surprised, thought csgo had a lot more lol

ZydrinPosted:

A lot of very good games! I love it.

EternityPosted:

Miss I find it odd those PCMR kids brag about their $1500 build and then play CSGO and Dota 2.


Honestly, I see the validity in your point. As you can see, a ton of PC players play Dota 2 or CS:GO. Why? Because they're fun and easily playable. Where does the $1500 build player fit into the mix? Sure, some of them play these games, but not a lot, or certainly not the majority. CS:GO and Dota 2 are not hard to run spec wise, so you see the higher player count. But turn to a game like Ashes of the Singularity or The Witcher 3, which are fairly difficult to run at a decent framerate, and the player count is low. But the people with expensive builds are playing these games because they are the only ones who are able to, thus a lower player count.

In general, I think the easier a game is to run, the more people will play it. I don't think it's fair for you to make a statement like this and single out the top % of PC gamers as the reason for the high player count that follows these games. Sure, I play CS:GO occasionally with my friends, but we don't stick to games like this - we'd rather go on Space Engineers, Arma or The Division. On the other end, just think about it; if I buy a low end computer I'm not gonna spend my time playing Arma 3 with 15 fps. I'm gonna play a game that runs decently and gives me the chance to play with all my friends.

The TL;DR is that a big reason for the player count on these games isn't necessarily because of the PCMR people with expensive builds grouping together. Because a majority of computers people buy nowadays can run these games with ease, they are more likely to play them (and they do, just look at the numbers).

lilmayoPosted:

Miss I find it odd those PCMR kids brag about their $1500 build and then play CSGO and Dota 2.


Thats because the PCMR don't play CSGO and Dota 2, they all wank themselves off to high fps on ultra settings on Battlefield or Fallout.

MissPosted:

I find it odd those PCMR kids brag about their $1500 build and then play CSGO and Dota 2.


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