In an industry notorious for being wildly secretive around how well its own products do, we love some real good, crunchy data. And with an overhaul to Steam Stats today, Valve is giving us exactly that.
It's called Steam Charts now, replacing Steam Stats, and like the old version, it still shows off the most popular games on the platform. But unlike Stats, Charts has the tools to drill down into what's making that popularity happen.
For context, the old Stats page mostly focused on top games by player count from moment to moment, with Valve regularly providing separate best-seller lists by genre and other factors. Charts puts all this in one spot.
The main page shows the top-selling games on Steam right now, as well as the most-played moment-to-moment by player count. There are also lists of the overall best-selling games right now and weekly top sellers by revenue, with an indication of changes to the chart from week to week, as well as how many weeks a game's been out, how much it costs, and whether or not it's on sale.
You can also sort charts by region for regional best-sellers. All of this is done by revenue, so free-to-play games with microtransactions are included, and extra bits like DLC and season passes are factored in.
Unfortunately, the overall monthly top-release harts are still ordered randomly, making it harder to pinpoint best-selling games month-to-month.
While you may not care much about this if you're not a numbers dork (like me, sorry), the real benefit of better data is that people who are can watch game sales trends with a little more accuracy and draw useful conclusions from it.
It's helpful for people who make and publish games to see what's doing well or isn't, maybe allowing them to fund games and genres they might not have previously planned to back. It can help people who make content see what people are playing and catch on to cool, surprising games that may not be getting the attention they deserve on websites like this one.
And, you know, it's neat to see Trombone Champ as the 11th best-selling game on Steam right now. Let it be known that for a shining moment, it was far more popular than Elden Ring (No.19).
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Continue reading...
It's called Steam Charts now, replacing Steam Stats, and like the old version, it still shows off the most popular games on the platform. But unlike Stats, Charts has the tools to drill down into what's making that popularity happen.
For context, the old Stats page mostly focused on top games by player count from moment to moment, with Valve regularly providing separate best-seller lists by genre and other factors. Charts puts all this in one spot.
The main page shows the top-selling games on Steam right now, as well as the most-played moment-to-moment by player count. There are also lists of the overall best-selling games right now and weekly top sellers by revenue, with an indication of changes to the chart from week to week, as well as how many weeks a game's been out, how much it costs, and whether or not it's on sale.
You can also sort charts by region for regional best-sellers. All of this is done by revenue, so free-to-play games with microtransactions are included, and extra bits like DLC and season passes are factored in.
Unfortunately, the overall monthly top-release harts are still ordered randomly, making it harder to pinpoint best-selling games month-to-month.
While you may not care much about this if you're not a numbers dork (like me, sorry), the real benefit of better data is that people who are can watch game sales trends with a little more accuracy and draw useful conclusions from it.
It's helpful for people who make and publish games to see what's doing well or isn't, maybe allowing them to fund games and genres they might not have previously planned to back. It can help people who make content see what people are playing and catch on to cool, surprising games that may not be getting the attention they deserve on websites like this one.
And, you know, it's neat to see Trombone Champ as the 11th best-selling game on Steam right now. Let it be known that for a shining moment, it was far more popular than Elden Ring (No.19).
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Continue reading...
