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Grief.exe · Apr 17, 2014

Ars Technica has spent the past few months crunching numbers from millions of Steam pages in order to create an accurate sample size of the whole. The first article has more information on how the data is gathered if you are interested.

How accurate are your numbers?

Since publishing, we've had a few more developers reach out either privately or publicly to offer their own Steam sales data for comparison to our estimates. With over a dozen "real world" spot checks in hand now, we have yet to see an instance where the error in our numbers is more than 10 percent off from the actual numbers developers have access to. Sometimes our error is much less than that, of course, and the error can go in either direction (though so far our numbers seem to over-estimate slightly more often than under-estimating).

While 10 percent isn't a small functional margin of error, it's also much better than a simple shot in the dark guess. If we're reporting sales of two million units for a game, you can be pretty confident the actual sales number is somewhere between 1.8 and 2.2 million.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/steam-gauge-addressing-your-questions-and-concerns/2/

Broder Salsa · Apr 17, 2014

APB went free to play right? I sure hope 3 mil didn't buy that piece of shit.

Dusky · Apr 17, 2014

Something went wrong towards the end of the list with the developers lol.

TheSeks · Apr 17, 2014

Two DICE titles in the top 100 should tell EA to put the titles on Steam and just have them require Origin like Uplay does for Ubisoft titles.

Anteater · Apr 17, 2014

Didn't know Dark Souls sold that well in terms of numbers

Grief.exe · Apr 17, 2014

WoodenLung said:
APB went free to play right? I sure hope 3 mil didn't buy that piece of shit.

Yes. I'm not so sure how I feel about the inclusion of F2P games on the list.

APB is one of those games that makes it very obvious people will try anything that is F2P.

Dusky said:
Something went wrong towards the end of the list with the developers lol.

It is that way on the site too, I suppose I should have fixed it myself but I forgot about that issue.

Paskil · Apr 17, 2014

Geez, Terraria is a beast.

furious · Apr 17, 2014

TheSeks said:
Two DICE titles in the top 100 should tell EA to put the titles on Steam and just have them require Origin like Uplay does for Ubisoft titles.

Terrible reasoning.

Kraftwerk · Apr 17, 2014

Has Valve responded to this? Also, are there any legal concerns? I mean, These guys just went through all of these user profiles and started gathering data without Valve's permission.

kswiston · Apr 17, 2014

Dark Souls is one of the biggest surprises on this list, since the last number we got was 300k. That's probably enough to make the PC the lead for units sold. Obviously console revenue would still be quite a bit higher.

Kraftwerk said:
Has Valve responded to this? Also, are there any legal concerns? I mean, These guys just went through all of these user profiles and started gathering data without Valve's permission.

You don't need permission to perform analyses on public data.

Tagyhag · Apr 17, 2014

I didn't know AOK potentially sold over a mil, neat. No wonder AOM is coming.

QuantumZebra · Apr 17, 2014

Makes me happy to see Mirror's Edge on the list. Wish Shadow Warrior was up there (love that damn game) !

thefro · Apr 17, 2014

So this is basically Ars Technica Chartz? Guess it's cool to get some estimates.

Dascu · Apr 17, 2014

One million for Dark Souls would be fantastic.

Kumubou · Apr 17, 2014

The F2P games need to be highlighted, as those numbers are effectively worthless since they'll pop into libraries very easily. I wish this was running longer so that you could see trends (and tie sales rates to season sales and bundles), but this is still some really good information.

It's a good sign that even the 100th best selling game can pull over a million in sales, and some of those numbers for indie titles are just bonkers. The sales numbers for Dark Souls need to be sent to every Japanese publisher ASAP.

Kraftwerk said:
Has Valve responded to this? Also, are there any legal concerns? I mean, These guys just went through all of these user profiles and started gathering data without Valve's permission.

I don't think there any legal concerns in regards to trade secrets or confidential information, as this is all sourced from publicly available data. Scraping that data is probably a TOS violation, but I can't see any legal action from that (but I'm not a lawyer).

thefro said:
So this is basically Ars Technica Chartz?

The methodology here is just a wee bit better than that banned site.

Ceebs · Apr 17, 2014

If those numbers are accurate, there is zero reason for your AAA console game not to have a PC port available. It is just leaving money on the table.

BigDug13 · Apr 17, 2014

Kinda surprised BL2 is still such a juggernaut.

BPoole · Apr 17, 2014

Dark Souls 1 breaking 1m is great news

low-G · Apr 17, 2014

kswiston said:
Dark Souls is one of the biggest surprises on this list, since the last number we got was 300k. That's probably enough to make the PC the lead for units sold.

Dark Souls had sold 1.3 million on PS3 alone as of one year ago.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=538569

I'm surprised that all these PC numbers are as low as they are. I expected the numbers to be higher, personally. Not bad though.

Abinash117 · Apr 17, 2014

Kumubou said:
The F2P games need to be highlighted, as those numbers are effectively worthless since they'll pop into libraries very easily. I wish this was running longer so that you could see trends (and tie sales rates to season sales and bundles), but this is still some really good information.

It's a good sign that even the 100th best selling game can pull over a million in sales, and some of those numbers for indie titles are just bonkers. The sales numbers for Dark Souls need to be sent to every Japanese publisher ASAP.

I don't think there any legal concerns in regards to trade secrets or confidential information, as this is all sourced from publicly available data. Scraping that data is probably a TOS violation, but I can't see any legal action from that (but I'm not a lawyer).

The methodology here is just a wee bit better than that banned site.

I don't think these are all sales but it just owners which could be from bundles, being free , actual sales etc http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=802746

Alrus · Apr 17, 2014

Some of these numbers are insanely high. Dark Souls and Civ V especially.

Edit: Forgot that Civ is a Steamworks game.

ArjanN · Apr 17, 2014

Ceebs said:
If those numbers are accurate, there is zero reason for your AAA console game not to have a PC port available. It is just leaving money on the table.

To be fair I think pretty much all publishers have caught on about that. There barely are any AAA console exclusive games and the ones that are, are pretty much all first party funded stuff that's intentionally kept exclusive.

maneil99 · Apr 17, 2014

Doesnt this include free weekends?

wutwutwut · Apr 17, 2014

I'm pretty sure Dark Souls sold more units than Namco spent in dollars on the PC port. And that isn't even all the units sold, since Dark Souls isn't Steamworks.

It's good to see good games do well.

Alrus · Apr 17, 2014

ArjanN said:
To be fair I think pretty much all publishers have caught on about that. There barely are any AAA console exclusive games and the ones that are, are pretty much all first party funded stuff that's intentionally kept exclusive.

Well Dragon Dogma was never ported on PC which is just baffling to me considering the genre.

Also, Square still refuses to put their japanese stuff on PC somehow, I don't really get it either.

Kusagari · Apr 17, 2014

If those Dark Souls sales are anywhere near accurate then every Japanese publisher who avoids PC should be banging their heads against the wall and changing course immediately.

kswiston · Apr 17, 2014

ArjanN said:
To be fair I think pretty much all publishers have caught on about that. There barely are any AAA console exclusive games and the ones that are, are pretty much all first party funded stuff that's intentionally kept exclusive.

GTA5 is an odd exclusion considering GTA 4 is sitting there with 2.5M sales on Steam alone. Unlike a lot of those games, it isn't Steamworks, so that doesn't count copies sold elsewhere or at retail.

jim-jam bongs · Apr 17, 2014

low-G said:
Dark Souls had sold 1.3 million on PS3 alone as of one year ago.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=538569

I'm surprised that all these PC numbers are as low as they are. I expected the numbers to be higher, personally. Not bad though.

All of the top 10 (ignoring f2p games) are over 3.5 million, and that's ignoring private profiles like mine. I think that's better than "not bad".

Ghazi · Apr 17, 2014

Valve topping dat list

Grief.exe · Apr 17, 2014

maneil99 said:
Doesnt this include free weekends?

Those games disappear from your public library once the free weekend is complete. Can't parse data that doesn't exist anymore.

kswiston said:
GTA5 is an odd exclusion considering GTA 4 is sitting there with 2.5M sales on Steam alone. Unlike a lot of those games, it isn't Steamworks, so that doesn't count copies sold elsewhere or at retail.

2.5 Million and one of the worst ports of all time.

low-G said:
Dark Souls had sold 1.3 million on PS3 alone as of one year ago.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=538569

I'm surprised that all these PC numbers are as low as they are. I expected the numbers to be higher, personally. Not bad though.

Keep in mind Steam only represents a portion of the total PC population. There are many more people playing League of Legends, Battle.net, World of Tanks, etc.

Kinthalis · Apr 17, 2014

Pretty cool stuff. Gotta figure game available on other platforms probably sold even better than what they did on just Steam - specially abroad. Binding of Isaac, for exmaple sold over 2 million units over a year ago, so the number listed here is definitely not representative of total sales for a number of games. Dakr Souls probably sold even better - in fact the sale sin Steam alone put it pretty close to the PS3 version - probably what prompted the devs to create a better port this time around.

Abinash117 · Apr 17, 2014

Is this chart for owners and titles being played and not necessarily from actual copies sold? Because from this post http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=802746 says owners and the numbers from that post match up to this one.

kswiston · Apr 17, 2014

Grief.exe said:
Keep in mind Steam only represents a portion of the total PC population. There are many more people playing League of Legends, Battle.net, World of Tanks, etc.

I'd bet that neither DOTA 2 or Team Fortress 2 are even in the real Top 10 PC games by sales. If we are counting all the people who have purchased a licence in the past 9 years, WoW is at some gigantic number. Same with some of the others you mention.

yuraya · Apr 17, 2014

Kusagari said:
If those Dark Souls sales are anywhere near accurate then every Japanese publisher who avoids PC should be banging their heads against the wall and changing course immediately.

How many concussions will Konami suffer through from banging head against wall before finally releasing all the MGS games on Steam?

grosvenor_92 · Apr 17, 2014

I'm kind of surprised that The Walking Dead is so low on the list.

Goldenroad · Apr 17, 2014

More people own Skyrim than Half Life 2, which is eons old and I'm pretty sure it's been free or next to free anyway. I imagine, if not for the free L4D2 giveaway, not too long ago, it would probably be behind Skyrim as well. So, basically, I think Skyrim is the highest, full, retail priced game on that list that people own...that has never been free.

IncandescentPrecept · Apr 17, 2014

Ceebs said:
If those numbers are accurate, there is zero reason for your AAA console game not to have a PC port available. It is just leaving money on the table.

What was the last AAA console game not to get a PC port?

Edit: Ok, GTAV is the exception but that's GTA.

Grief.exe · Apr 17, 2014

Goldenroad said:
More people own Skyrim than Half Life 2, which is eons old and I'm pretty sure it's been free or next to free anyway. I imagine, if not for the free L4D2 giveaway, not too long ago, it would probably be behind Skyrim as well. So, basically, I think Skyrim is the highest, full, retail priced game on that list that people own...that has never been free.

No, you aren't reading the chart correctly.

He has it sorted by people who have played the game rather than total owners for some reason. This causes issues as Steam didn't track hours played until 2009.

Half-Life 2 has a few million sales over Skyrim.

IncandescentPrecept said:
What was the last AAA console game not to get a PC port?

Edit: Ok, GTAV is the exception but that's GTA.

Metal Gear

jim-jam bongs · Apr 17, 2014

IncandescentPrecept said:
What was the last AAA console game not to get a PC port?

Edit: Ok, GTAV is the exception but that's GTA.

Considering your edit, I guess Red Dead? First party games don't count for obvious reasons, so I think it's mostly just middle tier Japanese games at this point.

kollapse · Apr 17, 2014

Dark Souls is probably the most surprising, but Starbound is clearly on its way to be gigantic at that rate.

HoosTrax · Apr 17, 2014

Goldenroad said:
More people own Skyrim than Half Life 2, which is eons old and I'm pretty sure it's been free or next to free anyway. I imagine, if not for the free L4D2 giveaway, not too long ago, it would probably be behind Skyrim as well. So, basically, I think Skyrim is the highest, full, retail priced game on that list that people own...that has never been free.

Not surprising. Skyrim holds the record for highest release day concurrent player count, barring Dota 2.

M3d10n · Apr 17, 2014

Grief.exe said:
Keep in mind Steam only represents a portion of the total PC population. There are many more people playing League of Legends, Battle.net, World of Tanks, etc.

Yes, when you consider the entire F2P universe, Steam is merely a galaxy cluster. However, in the realm of non-F2P and non-subscription PC games it's estimated to be a significant chunk of the market, around 70% if I remember correctly.

Goldenroad · Apr 17, 2014

Grief.exe said:
No, you aren't reading the chart correctly.

He has it sorted by people who have played the game rather than total owners for some reason. This causes issues as Steam didn't track hours played until 2009.

Half-Life 2 has a few million sales over Skyrim.

I know, I kind of tried to scan the second column, but still, if Half Life 2 has been free at some point, I think my point still stands...same with Portal. Maybe they haven't, but something tells me they both have.

Dario ff · Apr 17, 2014

I'm confused at the lack of Football Manager. How is it not on that list with the huge amount of players it has daily?

Kinda hard to think a game with 50-70k peak players daily would've sold less than 1m, but maybe they just really love playing. Civ 5 seems to reach similar player numbers, but the sales numbers are a whole different story.

Anon67 · Apr 17, 2014

Nice! Metro 2033 sold about 2million

. The developers totally deserve those sales.

flaxknuckles · Apr 17, 2014

taahahmed said:
Nice! Metro 2033 sold about 2million . The developers totally deserve those sales.

It was given out for free around the time Last Light was coming out.

Grief.exe · Apr 17, 2014

Goldenroad said:
I know, I kind of tried to scan the second column, but still, if Half Life 2 has been free at some point, I think my point still stands...same with Portal. Maybe they haven't, but something tells me they both have.

Are you saying Skyrim has generated the most revenue on that list? You will forgive me if your point is a bit disjointed.

taahahmed said:
Nice! Metro 2033 sold about 2million . The developers totally deserve those sales.

Actually it is at 3 million, check the chart again.

Organizing it that way was foolish.

CountAntonius · Apr 17, 2014

DoD:S nearly 6 million? Time for a new one uaing Source 2!

Unison · Apr 17, 2014

Why is Fallout 3 not on this list? It seems bizarre, given that New Vegas is #33.

Gbraga · Apr 17, 2014

Really happy about Dark Souls, I hope the second one does even better.

It's a shame that MGR is not on this list though. Not that it means it sold poorly, but I remember ToraShiro saying that if it did really good they'd make an official statement about it, and, well, they haven't.

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