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Ars Technica: Steam Gauge Data of the most popular titles in 2014

C

crimsonheadGCN

Banned
Last year, Ars Technica developed a method to measure the amount of players for each game on Steam. If you want to know how they did it, you can read it here: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/introducing-steam-gauge-ars-reveals-steams-most-popular-games/

They just updated their results in the following article: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/03/steam-gauge-measuring-the-most-popular-steam-games-of-2014/

steam-gauge-2014-FINAL.001-640x640.jpg


I am really shocked about Unturned having that many installs. Currently, it would be the most owned game in the survival genre (DayZ, Rust, etc).

steam-gauge-2014-FINAL.008-640x640.jpg


steam-gauge-2014-FINAL.003-640x640.jpg


There's a lot more at the article link.
 
dugdug

dugdug

Banned
Man, I like to think I'm pretty in-the-know when it comes to games.

I've heard of, maybe, 6 games out of both of those lists. What the hell is Unturned?
 
S

Sho_Nuff82

Member
Really surprised at NBA 2k and Dead Island, that's got be equal or greater than the console numbers for those titles in the same time period, no?

Also, what are Unturned and Robocraft?

Edit: The Forest was a huge hit. Looks like survival horror ain't dead.
 
E

eFKac

Member
Xer0 said:
Man, I like to think I'm pretty in-the-know when it comes to games.

I've heard of, maybe, 6 games out of both of those lists. What the hell is Unturned?
Click to expand...

Lol same here, know maybe half of those, and majorly by mistake or heard the name once.

No idea what apparently one of the biggest games of last year is :-D
 
Bl@de

Bl@de

Member
Yep this list + LoL and Minecraft is what the generation of my brother (ages 14-18) is playing on steam. No one cares about the AAA market. That's more on consoles.
 
DryvBy

DryvBy

Member
A bunch of F2P games. No one "owns" them.

Skyrim is a little strange to see. Why the boost? Was there a good sale?
 
K

kswiston

Member
Raw data suggests that Valkyria Chronicles has sold over 200k copies on Steam already. Given future sales, it is possible that the Steam version will eventually surpass the PS3 version in the west.

EDIT: Japanese games are seeing big numbers in general

Metal Gear Rising - 440k
Final Fantasy XIII - 325k
 
T

texhnolyze

Banned
Eh, Defiance is up there, unexpected.
And how come F2P games went to owned and best selling?
Owned as in installed and best selling microtransactions?
I don't really get the graphs.
 
I

infinityBCRT

Member
NBA 2K15 sold WHAT on PC?

Fuck, thats crazy.

This just tells me EA is really really stupid for not putting out all of their Sports stuff on PC.

Also... FUCK thats crazy. It's kinda new thread worthy to me, although I guess we don't want a million threads to spawn off of this one.
 
C

Corpekata

Banned
Unturned went viral because it was a fun free game and also developed by like a teenager, so it got a lot of press and tons of people tried it out.
 
C

Corpekata

Banned
texhnolyze said:
Eh, Defiance is up there, unexpected.
And how come F2P games went to owned and best selling?
Owned as in installed and best selling microtransactions?
I don't really get the graphs.
Click to expand...

Installed. This is why things like Dead Island Epidemic are so high, they did the gift gimmick for beta testing.

List is mainly useful for the non-F2P games.
 
K

kswiston

Member
Based on this update and the last Ars sales estimate article, it looks like Skyrim will easily break 10M on PC alone. If Bethesda wasn't a private company, we'd be getting a sequel every 2 years.
 
S

Seanspeed

Banned
We should remember this for the next time people want to think GAF is any way representative of what the gaming world out there looks like.
 
D

Dinda

Member
Am i missing something? I have a hard time believing that these numbers are true. Doesn't Sega provide pretty detailed numbers for their titles? Don't think company of heroes 2 and total war rome 2 were anywhere near those 4 million they claim. Or doesn't Sega count digital? Or do i read it wrong?
 
M

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
kswiston said:
Raw data suggests that Valkyria Chronicles has sold over 200k copies on Steam already. Given future sales, it is possible that the Steam version will eventually surpass the PS3 version in the west.

EDIT: Japanese games are seeing big numbers in general

Metal Gear Rising - 440k
Final Fantasy XIII - 325k
Click to expand...

Woah indeed.
 
C

Corpekata

Banned
Dinda said:
Am i missing something? I have a hard time believing that these numbers are true. Doesn't Sega provide pretty detailed numbers for their titles? Don't think company of heroes 2 and total war rome 2 were anywhere near those 4 million they claim. Or doesn't Sega count digital? Or do i read it wrong?
Click to expand...

The recent Sega numbers were for retail games.
 
S

Seanspeed

Banned
zephervack said:
I must be blind, I dont see Dark Souls 2 on any of those graphs.
Click to expand...
Its in the article. Its like 8th in terms of most played games of 2014 excluding F2P. Also 2nd highest for avg hours played.

Also looks like Divinity seems to be up there with at least 700,000 players. That's pretty damn healthy sales figures for them.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Are we sure these numbers are correct?

4 million for Company of Heroes 2? Is that really not flagging the beta?

That'd put it about par with StarCraft 2.

Nabs said:
Could the recent free weekends have something to do with this?
Click to expand...

Okay that would make more sense.
 
T

texhnolyze

Banned
Corpekata said:
Installed. This is why things like Dead Island Epidemic are so high, they did the gift gimmick for beta testing.

List is mainly useful for the non-F2P games.
Click to expand...

I see, that makes sense then.
It seems that they can't extract Dota 2 and TF2 data from Steam.
I think OP should just put this one graph instead, the most important one.

steam-gauge-2014-FINAL.003-640x640.jpg
Click to expand...
 
F

Felix Lighter

Member
Skyrim selling 3 million copies 2.5-3.5 years after release on a single platform is crazy even with the big discounts. Make your games mod friendly, publishers/devs!
 
1

1st Course

Member
kswiston said:
Based on this update and the last Ars sales estimate article, it looks like Skyrim will easily break 10M on PC alone. If Bethesda wasn't a private company, we'd be getting a sequel every 2 years.
Click to expand...

Combining the new numbers with the old ones CSGO is over 12M
 
X

Xando

Member
miladesn said:
wait, does that say CoH2 sold 4m just last year? I'm highly skeptical...
Click to expand...
Nirolak said:
Are we sure these numbers are correct?

4 million for Company of Heroes 2? Is that really not flagging the beta?

That'd put it about par with StarCraft 2.



Okay that would make more sense.
Click to expand...

If i remember correct they released 2-3 addons (like expansions) last year alone, wouldn't wonder me if that is counted as a sale.

Great that The Forest seems to be a success.

Would be interesting to see how many sales came from famous youtubers playing it.
 
M

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
Wait a second

Watch_Dogs - 422,965
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - 444,266

JUSTICE
 
S

smisk

Member
Over half of those are F2P games, it'd be more useful to look at the list excluding them. I was surpised at NBA 2K14 a well. Also nice to see that Insurgency sold over 1.5 million copies.
 
K

kswiston

Member
1st Course said:
Combining the new numbers with the old ones CSGO is over 12M
Click to expand...

Well, the game does have 400k concurrent players these days.

That said, anything that has had a free weekend is probably incorrect.

Mpl90 said:
Wait a second

Watch_Dogs - 422,965
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - 444,266

JUSTICE
Click to expand...

Metal Gear Solid V paid demo also received close to 200k purchases despite being about twice as expensive as the PSN version during sales to date (I don't think I have seen Ground Zeroes for less than $13). I think that Steam players are receptive to all of these long running Japanese series making the PC jump.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
The Forest, Don't Starve Together, Shadow of Mordor, Banished, Dark Souls II, Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, Divinity, and South Park all sitting at around 1 million sales.

That's really impressive.
 
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