• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

2021 Year in Review - Steam has now 132M monthly active users

Midn1ght

Member
a00235ec8a57122f9b2ac32d63ada8346263a148.png


Steam platform growth
2021 was successful even in comparison to 2020’s unprecedented growth. Players spent almost 38 billion hours on Steam in 2021 - a 21% increase over 2020. (That's a whopping 4.3 million years of playtime.)

Player spending on games rose 27% compared to 2020, growing even more than playtime did. That growth wasn't just due to existing players, either - Steam saw 2.6M first-time purchasers each month of 2021, roughly the same rate of new purchaser growth we saw in 2020 as the global pandemic unfolded.
It’s also worth pointing out that 2021 saw the addition of some beloved formerly-console-exclusive games from our friends at Sony and Microsoft. There are no bad years to be a PC gamer, but 2021 was an especially good one. From Days Gone to Forza Horizon 5, players on PC got to enjoy an incredible lineup from some of the best first-party console studios on the planet. That explosion of fresh content is a testament to the open, competitive nature of the PC ecosystem, where players have the broadest choice of what hardware to play on, what stores and services to use, and which games to play.
We're very excited to see Steam Deck out in the wild, and we believe it will meaningfully expand the benefits of PC gaming for the whole industry. Looking ahead, we plan to launch Steam Deck availability in more territories, and continue to ship software and firmware updates to improve the user experience for Deck. In the meantime, follow us @OnDeck to see gameplay videos and other updates.

More at the link:
Steam - 2021 Year in Review
 
Last edited:

kingfey

Banned
Epic's 2021 was pretty laughable compared to this.
epic is in building stage. It will take time, before they establish themselves. They are going the Netflix route, which investing on the stores, and build up userbase. Once it reaches certain level, they could make tons of profits. But as of now, they are not at that level yet.
 

Gamezone

Gold Member
epic is in building stage. It will take time, before they establish themselves. They are going the Netflix route, which investing on the stores, and build up userbase. Once it reaches certain level, they could make tons of profits. But as of now, they are not at that level yet.

I know it will take time, but they are moving slower than Valve/Steam, which was moving pretty slow to begin with.
 

Midn1ght

Member
2021’s Summer Sale was the biggest event in Steam’s history, with revenue for game developers growing 13% over Summer Sale 2020. But that record only stood for a few months, because the 2021 Winter Sale was even bigger. And Winter Sale 2021 also welcomed first-time purchasers to the platform: 2.3 million people all bought a game on Steam for the first time in the same 14-day window.
This one's a surprise. I thought Steam Holiday Sales reached their peak a few years ago and I admittedly buy most of my games outside of Steam now.
But to be fair, with so many new account created in 2020/2021, it's no surprise to see them doing strong numbers.
First 2-3 years on Steam buying everything is always fun.
 

Gamezone

Gold Member
Valve took 19 years to reach this point. Epic started 3 years ago. So the pace will be different.

It took them 19 years because the technology didn't excist back then. Epic is building their store while the technology excist. They should therefor evolve much faster than Steam did.
 
Last edited:

kingfey

Banned
It took them 19 years because the technology didn't excist back then. Epic is building their store while the technology excist. They should therefor evolve much faster than Steam did.
Its what they are doing now. They are on year 4 now. 2 more years needed for them to show some progress.
 

Graciaus

Member
Its what they are doing now. They are on year 4 now. 2 more years needed for them to show some progress.
What progress? Raising people on handouts and then expecting them to pay is a terrible strategy. The year end numbers they release aren't even bad they are horrible. That store will never make a profit.
 

kingfey

Banned
What progress? Raising people on handouts and then expecting them to pay is a terrible strategy. The year end numbers they release aren't even bad they are horrible. That store will never make a profit.
That is how you get people to look at your store.
Companies give away free stuff, in order to attract people. They also make three store attractive, by making exclusive stuff which belongs to that store (netflix, and other big content companies).
 
Top Bottom