Global PC Games Market Report 2024

Jan, 2024 Contact: sales@vginsights.com
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Global PC Games Market Report 2024
2023 Was a Stellar Year for Steam Games, But Can the Momentum Last into 2024?

Table of Contents
The Steam Games Ma rket Today
Market Concentration
Games in 2023 and Beyond
Evolving Strategies for the Games Industry
3 -9
1 3 -1 5
1 6 -18
19 -21
The Steam Games Ma rket Forecast 10 -1 2

The Steam Games Market Today

The PC market continued to set records in 2023 wit h highest ever revenues,
units sold, peak players online and number of games released on Steam
Summarizing 2023 in PC Games market
$9.0Bn
Revenue Generated 1
14,000
Games Released
33.6M
Peak Players Online
Key trends in the PC market in 2023
Record -breaking sales, driven by a strong slate of game releases 1
A standout year for RPG games, led by Baldur’s Gate 3 2
“Winner takes it all” market with top 10 games making up 61% of the revenue 3
Increased competition between top studios drives deeper discounts 4
Live -services games fell out of favour as premium story -focused games dominated 5
580M
Games Sold
1 – Full Game Sales only, excluding in -game spend

2023 was a stand -out year for Steam game performance as new game releases
overperformed expectations, doubling in size since 2019
Steam Market Size, Full Game Sale Revenue ( 201 8-23 , $bn)
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
$4.5bn
$7.3bn $7.4bn $7.6bn
$9.0bn
2018
$5.3bn
-14.3%
+60.9% +4.5%
+17.8%
• PC game revenues were fairly flat between 2020 -22
as the industry was normalizing after the Covid -boom
• 2023 is the first significant year of growth for PC,
doing significantly better than the consoles
• Growth was largely driven by a strong slate of new
launches , from Hogwards Legacy to Baldur ’s Gate
• PC game sales were further boosted by lagging PS5
and XBX sales , serving as an alternative to many
gamers
2023 saw strong revenue growth for Steam games

The best performing games of 2023 tended to focus on quality, lack of
microtransactions and creativity coming from small teams
Top 10 Released Games in 2023 by Units and Revenue
Top 2023 Releases
by Units
#1 Baldur’s Gate 3
#2 Hogwarts Legacy
#3 Lethal Company
4 Overwatch® 2
5 Sons Of The Forest
6 Starfield
7 BattleBit Remastered
8 Resident Evil 4
9 THE FINALS
10 ARMORED CORE ™ VI
Top 2023 Releases
by Full Game Revenue
#1 Baldur’s Gate 3
#2 Hogwarts Legacy
#3 Starfield
4 Resident Evil 4
5 Sons Of The Forest
6 ARMORED CORE ™ VI
7 EA SPORTS FC ™ 24
8 STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor ™
9 Lethal Company
10 Cities: Skylines II
Large overlap between top lists – 7/10 games
appear in both
Top games by units include only 2 Free -to -Play
games , but 5 focus on multiplayer / co -op
Great quality games with no microtransactions
dominate the top releases by full game revenue
4 of the games are developed by very small
indie teams – from 1 -16 people
Large Overlap
Lack of
Free -to -Play
Lack of
Microtransactions
Big Games by
Small Teams
2023 Top Games Trends

Action & Adventure games still dominate Steam, but RPGs had a great year in
2023; Simulation, Casual, and MMO genres lost significant market share.
Revenue Weighted Genre Mix of Games Released in 2023 VS Before (% of Total Full Game Revenue)
21%
32%
15%
10% 11%
5%
2%
3%
2%
30%
26%
23%
12%
5%
2% 2% 1% 0%
Adventure Action RPG Strategy Simulation Casual Sports MMO Racing
Pre 2023 Genre Mix
2023 Genre Mix
Adventure and RPG games overperformed in
2023, lead by Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield, Hogwarts
Legacy and others
Action games such as Call of Duty
underperformed. There were also less large
simulation and casual games releases

Number of games released on Steam has continued to grow fast since Covid,
reaching almost 14,000 in 2023
Number of Games Released on Steam, by Year (2019 -23, #)
8,142 8,048
9,715
11,188 12,241
13,790
2018
177
2019
192
2020
151
2021 2023
181
2022
166
8,324 8,225
9,907
11,339
12,407
13,971
182
-1.2%
+20.4%
+14.5%
+9.4%
+12.6%
AA / AAA Games
Indie Games

Only a fraction of the 14k new games releases perform well. However, this still
leads to hundreds of successful games every year
2023 PC Games Industry in Numbers
Out of all games, 930 made over $1M in revenue1
97 games had over 1M downloads Only 5% of the new releases made over $100k 1
1 – full game gross revenue only, excluding IAP
157 games made over $10M and 20 made over $50M
Almost 14,000 new games were released
Only 309 of the new releases were free to play games

The Steam Games Market Forecast

2024 will be a challenging year before longer term positive trends take over and
continue to boost PC games market performance
Steam Market Forecast , Full Game Sale Revenue (20 23 -28, $bn)
2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028
$4.5bn
$7.3bn $7.4bn $7.6bn
$9.0bn $8.8bn $9.2bn
$10.2bn
$10.9bn
$11.5bn
2019
+59.8%
+18.1% -2.5%
+5.0% • 2024 PC game sales are expected to underperform
VS 2023:
• Lack of strong game releases VS 2023
• Loss of PC game market share to consoles as
discounted consoles boost sales
• Continued price pressure from players having
increasingly large choice of free( ish ) games
through subscription services, free giveaways
and steep discounts
• PC games market is expected to pick up pace in
2025 -2028 as longer term trends remain positive:
• Continued growth of Steam as a platform
among global players, especially in developing
countries
• Strong slate of really big upcoming AAA games
• More standout indie releases and growing
interest towards high quality indie games
• Continued trend to port historically console
only games to PC (Eg Spider -Man, Horizon)
Tough 2024 before we return to growth
CAGR 1
Forecast
1 – CAGR – compound annual growth rate

Slowdown of new user growth, but continued increase of average prices will
drive the PC market forward at more moderate growth rates
Drivers of Steam Market Performance – Units Sold and Price (2019 -28, $bn)
2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028
402M
545M 579M 534M 580M 566M 574M 605M 622M 635M
2019
+35.7%
+6.4%
-2.5%
+1.8%
$11.3
$13.3 $12.7
$14.3 $15.5 $15.5 $16.1 $16.9 $17.5 $18.1
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028
+17.8%
+16.5% 0.0%
+3.1%
Total Games Sold on Steam (2019 -28, Millions of units 1) Average Price of Games Sold (2019 -28, USD)
CAGR 2
1 – Includes free to play game “units” which are defined as downloaded and installed games that were launched at least once
2 – CAGR – compound annual growth rate
CAGR 2
• Steam’s average prices are still low compared to consoles – pushed down by high
proportion of indie games and traditionally price sensitive user base
• As a result, there is still headroom for Steam games price growth despite the
negative price pressures in the games industry
• Growth will come from concentration of purchases towards large AAA games
being sold at $70 as well as indie games starting to charge more
• Steam has seen a huge boost in active users since Covid, however, the growth
has flattened in 2023
• Steam will continue to grow userbase over the next 5 years, albeit at lower than
historical rates
• Lower user growth and a more casual mix of new users will limit the unit sales
growth over the next years

Market Concentration

The PC games industry has become increasingly “winner takes it all” over the
last 8 years
% of Revenue Captured by Top 10 Games Released that Year on Steam (2016 -23)
37% 37%
47%
41% 43% 42%
51%
61%
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Top 10 games released in
2023 make up 61% of
the full game revenue
generated by all games
released in 2023

In 2023, the top 100 released games accounted for 91% of the total revenue,
while the remaining 13,871 games contributed just 9%
Revenue Distribution For Steam Games LAUNCHED in 2023 (Number of games and % of revenue they make up)
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750 800 850 900 950 1000
Top 1 game – 21% of total
annual revenue
Top 10 games – 61% of
total annual revenue
Top 50 games – 85% of
total annual revenue
Top 100 games – 91% of
total annual revenue

Games in 2023 and beyond

2023 was a year of massive open world RPGs – from D&D to wizards and space
exploration
Top 3 Releases on Steam in 2023 by Gross Revenue
Starfield managed to make it to
top 3 despite being heavily
cannibalized by a day 1 Xbox
Game Pass release and
underwhelming launch reception
Baldur’s
Gate 3
Hogwarts
Legacy
Starfield Resident
Evil 4
Sons Of
The Forest
ARMORED
CORE ™ VI
EA SPORTS
FC ™ 24
STAR
WARS Jedi:
Survivor ™
Lethal
Company
Cities:
Skylines II
$657M
$341M
$235M $159M $116M $87M $81M $68M $52M $50M
Top 10 Games Released on Steam in 2023 , by Full Game Revenue
#1
#3 #2

The most anticipated upcoming games come from a variety of genres and
include both existing and new franchise titles
Top 10 Most Anticipated Upcoming Games
Enshrouded Unrecord Dark and
Darker
The First
Descendant
Dragon’s
Dogma 2
Hades II Manor Lords Pax Dei Infection
Free Zone
ARK 2
106k 93k 92k 76k 75k 60k 58k 57k 54k 53k
Top 10 Most Followed Upcoming Games on Steam
#1
#3 #2

Evolving Strategies

Games like EA Sports FC have done deeper discounts than ever before during
Black Friday
EA Sports FC 24 Discounting Strategy
EA FC was -50% off on all platforms during its first discount since
launch
Price and First Discounts of EA Sports FC 24 and FIFA 23

Microtransactions (MTX) share has continued to grow among larger games up
to now. However, in 2023 only 6 of the 24 top games had MTX
Share of Games Using Microtransactions, by Year (2018 -23)
18% 17% 17% 18% 19% 20%
2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
27% 28% 30% 31% 33%
25%
2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Share of MTX For Games With Over 100k Units Sold Share of MTX For Games With Over 1 Million Units Sold
Top games of 2023
tended to be more high
quality premium games
and less likely to focus
on microtransactions

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Appendix

Definitions and methodology
Glossary
Terms Definitions
AA /AAA games Large budget games developed by massive teams and companies. AAA game budgets are typically over $100M to develop
CAGR Compound annual growth rate
CCU Concurrent users –active players in -game
FtP Free to play games
Full Game Revenue Revenue from the direct sale of a game, excluding any DLC and MTX revenues
IAP In-app purchases
Indie games Games developed by independent studios. This covers a large range of studios from 1 person hobby projects to larger studios o f a
few hundred employees, but budgets still fall far short of the AAA game levels
MTX Microtransactions
Unit Sales Estimate Using different estimation methods, including an algorithm based on our internal database of actual sales and the Boxleiter
method to get from Steam review numbers to estimated sales. Detailed overview of the method is highlighted in the section bel ow
Revenue Estimate Estimated units sold multiplied by the price at the time. This is gross revenue, including the Steam cut, but adjusted for lo cal
currencies, returned products and discounts
More information:
Definitions: https://vginsights.com/about
Methodology: https://vginsights.com/insights/article/ steam -sales -estimation -methodology -and -accuracy
Email: Support@vginsights.com

Legal Disclaimer
Legal Stuff. We’ll Keep It Brief
Video Game Insights (VGI) is in no way affiliated with Steam or Valve .
All data provided in this report is freely available and can be shared without any restrictions.
All data provided in this report is based on estimates and should be considered as such.
VGI uses third -party suppliers and applications, often internet enabled. VG Insights can therefore not guarantee the accuracy of all data coming from third parties. This might be due to
mis -tagging or mis -reporting of data and VG Insights will adjust and fix the issues when highlighted to us.
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