Service-based games dominate the Steam top-selling and most-played charts of 2018
By Alex Calvin, PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor
To mark the end of 2018, Valve has revealed which titles performed best on Steam for the year.
In typical fashion for the PC giant, the data is somewhat obfuscated by the fact that Valve hasn't ranked games per se, rather sorted than into Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze tiers.
But this time around, Valve has published more charts that give a greater insight into the games that have performed best in 2018. This is certainly a step in the right direction, especially considering that the firm has said that it is rolling out its own data service that will be of a higher quality than the third-party SteamSpy, but there's still a great deal of vital information missing from this 2018 review data.
Anyway, here we're going to take a look at three of these rankings and taking a look at what they tell us about the games market heading into 2019.
There aren't many new faces in the best-selling ranks for 2018. The usual faces, titles like Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, Dota 2, CS:GO and Grand Theft Auto V appear, with only three new releases appearing in the Top 12.
Two of those are Ubisoft titles; Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Far Cry 5, with the third being Capcom's Monster Hunter World.
This shows a certain degree of consolidation on Steam, as well as the effective nature of the games-as-a-service business model. The older titles are all projects that have a longer tail.
Furthermore, the success of Capcom's Monster Hunter World indicates that there is definitely an audience for more niche titles on Steam, something that the firm will no doubt be noting in the future. This also follows a degree of success on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which will no doubt have helped out.
Here are the Top 12 best-selling games of 2018 on Steam:
Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, PUBG Corp Monster Hunter World, Capcom The Elder Scrolls Online, Bethesda Grand Theft Auto V, Rockstar Warframe, Digital Extremes Dota 2, Valve Far Cry 5, Ubisoft Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Valve Rocket League, Psyonix Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Ubisoft Civilization VI, 2K Games Rainbow Six: Siege, Ubisoft
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Top Selling New Releases of 2018
The top-selling new releases actually features a number of titles that weren't exactly big names.
Dragon Ball FighterZ benefited from an early launch in 2018, hitting Steam at the end of January. Meanwhile, indie darlings Celeste and Iconoclausts make the Top Ten, alongside Railway Empire from Kalypso.
Here are the Top 10 New Releases of 2018 on Steam:
Dragon Ball FighterZ, Bandai Namco SOS, Outpost Games Granado Espada, IMC Games The Disappearing of Gensokyo, My ACG Studios Trailermakers, Flashbulb Railway Empire, Kalypso My Time at Portio, Team17 Iconoclasts, Bifrost Battle Royale Trailer, Trickjump Celest, Matt Makes Games Staxel, Humble Bundle
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Most Played Games of 2018
Much like the Top Selling games of the year, the Most Played titles of 2018 are predominaninately a line-up of familiar faces. In fact, there are only two releases on this list that came out in 2018 - Realm Royale from Hi-Rez and Capcom's Monster Hunter World. The former shows that there is still success to be had in the battle royale space on PC, despite the fact that Hi-Rez's title saw a massive dip in players since its launch in June of this year.
Next year, expect this list to look largely the same given that nine of the ten titles on this list are service-based projects which show no sign of slowing down in terms of popularity.
Here are the 10 Most Played Games of 2018:
Dota 2, Valve Monster Hunter World, Capcom Counter-Strike: Global Offensive,Valve Warframe, Digital Extremes Team Fortress 2, Valve Grand Theft Auto V, Rockstar Rainbow Six: Siege, Ubisoft Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, PUBG Corp Realm Royale, Hi-Rez Path of Exile: Betrayal, Grind Gear
Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.
