A Steamroller Among PC Games Stores: Steam Increases Growth, Updates Incoming

[Raevenlord]

In an internal presentation, Valve, the company which simply won't give us Half Life 3, made a pretty interesting presentation on its growth and plans for the future. During the independent games showcase Indigo 2017, which took place in the Netherlands this past June, Steam revealed it had achieved a record 14 million concurrent users, up from a 2015 peak of (comparatively) just 8.4 million. Some other interesting statistics include an average of 33 million daily active players; 67 million monthly active players; and around 26 million gamers who made new purchases since January 2016.

North America seems to represent the bulk of Steam sales, with around 34% of sales through the market occurring way over that side of the ocean. Next comes Western Europe, with 29% of the sales pie, followed by Asia, which achieves a grand total of 17%. Next come the Russian Territories, Oceania and Latin America, which account for 5%, 4%, and 3% respectively. We'll just assume the remaining 8% come from Eastern Europe, the African Continent, and those researchers in Antarctica. Jokes aside, this shows monumental growth for the company, which should only increase provided the continued growth of the PC gaming market. Steam certainly has features games appreciate already - the growth speaks strongly for this. So now Valve only has to not ruin it, and keep on adding incremental features.





Of these, Valve is looking to introduce a revised UI, improve game access in its interface and make it easier for users to launch their most recently played games. Valve will also look into making it clear which games in your library are showing player activity, so you won't ever have to lay around empty multiplayer queues. Some quality of life improvements for curators and reviewers are also in the works. Check out the rest of the slides below.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[NC37]

And EA continues to pout in their little Origin hole, too stubborn to just give up and come back to Steam. Imagine how much better their sales would be if they had management that was smart.

 

[NRANM]

Nicely done by Valve.

However, I wonder what percentage of that money will be used for improving the sub-par (and I use the term very generously ) support, introducing some kind of quality control for Steam Direct, and creating a PR department so that there is communication between the company and its users.

Zero percent? Zero is a percent, right?
Because their automated machine response "support" is good enough?
Because they don't want quality control since that would actually reduce revenue (more crap sold = more m0n3yz)?
Because there is no need for a PR department because Valve doesn't want to communicate or care about its users' feedback?

[rant about HL3]
And I'm not mentioning Half-Life 3 because I've given up that we will ever see it. After all, game development requires time, resources, effort, and passion, and Valve doesn't want to invest the first three due to a severe lack of the fourth.
Getting money by selling other people's creations (games, cosmetics) is a much, much more profitable endeavor, not to mention easier, as it requires but a fraction of the aforementioned time, resources and effort.
Developing games sounds like work! Yuck!
[/rant about HL3]

 

[Manu_PT]

Mostly thanks to Dota 2, CS go and PubG. According to steamstats half of the active players are on those 3 games.

Pretty demanding games that need beefy GPUs to run xD

/irony off

 

[ShurikN]

Mostly thanks to Dota 2, CS go and PubG. According to steamstats half of the active players are on those 3 games.

Pretty demanding games that need beefy GPUs to run xD

/irony off

Pubg requires a pretty decent hardware to run at max settings 1080p.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/8...legrounds-benchmarked-cpu-gpu-war/index5.html

CSGO is preferably played at 150+fps, needs a solid PC for that as well. Not too new, but with some horsepower.

Dota 2 is the only one that can run on potato PCs.

Please do some research before posting crap.

 

[bug]

And EA continues to pout in their little Origin hole, too stubborn to just give up and come back to Steam. Imagine how much better their sales would be if they had management that was smart.

Let's not forget about UPlay.

 

[Vayra86]

Pubg requires a pretty decent hardware to run at max settings 1080p.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/8...legrounds-benchmarked-cpu-gpu-war/index5.html

CSGO is preferably played at 150+fps, needs a solid PC for that as well. Not too new, but with some horsepower.

Dota 2 is the only one that can run on potato PCs.

Please do some research before posting crap.

You assume max settings 1080p and people rocking CSGO at 150fps. Let's have some fun with actual numbers... You know this research you speak of?

1366 x 768
21.69%
-0.62%

1440 x 900
4.29%
+0.01%

That's already a quarter of your playerbase right there. 49% is on 1080p and if I remember right about 39% has two 1080p panels next to each other, but they game on one of them.

CPU speeds show that the vast majority has nowhere near enough clock to run high FPS

2.3 Ghz to 2.69 Ghz
19.38%
+0.10%

Now, VRAM...

1024 MB
31.13%
-0.61%

2047 MB
24.68%
+0.68%

512 MB
5.68%
-0.35%

60% has VRAM none of us would consider sufficient for maxed out 1080p. So who has more than 2 GB? Let's be amazed together shall we

3071 MB
2.87%
+0.69%

4095 MB -- GTX 970
10.95%
+1.75%

4096 MB
1.57%
-0.81%

6143 MB -- GTX 1060, 980ti
3.67%
+0.71%

6144 MB
0.64%
-0.29%

8191 MB
4.22%
+0.68%

8192 MB
0.59%
-0.38%


i'll hazard a guess... could it be true that the vast majority doesn't give a rats ass about maxed out 1080p? And actually plays whatever they can play even if they get 15 fps or forced to run at low/medium?

Yup.

 

[ShurikN]

And actually plays whatever they can play even if they get 15 fps or forced to run at low/medium?

None of the 3 mentioned games are playable at 15fps.
Yup.

 

[Vayra86]

None of the 3 mentioned games are playable at 15fps.
Yup.

Playable is subjective. Meeting system requirements is not.

 

[Prince Valiant]

And EA continues to pout in their little Origin hole, too stubborn to just give up and come back to Steam. Imagine how much better their sales would be if they had management that was smart.

Steam takes a large cut, why would EA bother with them when they're doing fine? I don't like EA much but it's nice to see them tell Steam to piss off on some level at least.

I see the graph wizards are at it again.

Is 2009 1, 10, 50, 5000? Nobody knows .

 

[Readlight]

When they fix, process how to find games that are god and works to 60-75 fps on my cpu gpu under 5 euro

 

[vega22]

I see the graph wizards are at it again.

Is 2009 1, 10, 50, 5000? Nobody knows .

image claims they're getting around 6 times more purchases per user, each year, now vs then.

 

[Manu_PT]

Pubg requires a pretty decent hardware to run at max settings 1080p.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/8...legrounds-benchmarked-cpu-gpu-war/index5.html

CSGO is preferably played at 150+fps, needs a solid PC for that as well. Not too new, but with some horsepower.

Dota 2 is the only one that can run on potato PCs.

Please do some research before posting crap.

Maxed settings? 200fps? Mainstream? You do your research first and then talk. Most gamers play low resolutions and settings. Go check most used gpu and cpu clocks.

 

[trparky]

And EA continues to pout in their little Origin hole, too stubborn to just give up and come back to Steam. Imagine how much better their sales would be if they had management that was smart.

EA and smarts usually don't go together. This is after all the most hated company in America. One doesn't become the most hated company in America by being smart, they do it by being monumentally stupid.

 

[deu]

If russia is such a small part of steam; all I want to know is why I constantly is forced into MM in CSGO with people from russia who have bought their rank and plays like drunken monkeys? (ye ye I know 99% of all russians plays CSGO....)

 

[Readlight]

If russia is such a small part of steam; all I want to know is why I constantly is forced into MM in CSGO with people from russia who have bought their rank and plays like drunken monkeys? (ye ye I know 99% of all russians plays CSGO....)

Me too, all players are from rusia not from my country,

 

[rtwjunkie]

image claims they're getting around 6 times more purchases per user, each year, now vs then.

LOL....thats as bad as the "really great" performance graohs AMD has been putting out. That chart does and says nothing nothing except pump up employee morale.

 

[vega22]

LOL....thats as bad as the "really great" performance graohs AMD has been putting out. That chart does and says nothing nothing except pump up employee morale.

to me they show more the switch from full priced games to free to play (with micro-transactions) becoming more and more the norm.

but yeah, the chart is kinds pants xD

 

[AsRock]

And EA continues to pout in their little Origin hole, too stubborn to just give up and come back to Steam. Imagine how much better their sales would be if they had management that was smart.

HUH ?, i still buy EA games ( if any good )if they are on steam or not, not good to have all your eggs in one basket.

EA and smarts usually don't go together. This is after all the most hated company in America. One doesn't become the most hated company in America by being smart, they do it by being monumentally stupid.

ooh as making some thing like 2.6b and over 10% over previously is just bad business.

And as for this year
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ea-release-first-quarter-fiscal-200500490.html

 

[trparky]

Considering that EA fucked up the Command & Conquer series I have to say they suck big time. Oh and don't get me started on the Madden series. Holy shit.

 

[Prince Valiant]

Considering that EA fucked up the Command & Conquer series I have to say they suck big time. Oh and don't get me started on the Madden series. Holy shit.

I've heard that 3 is decent and 4 is a mess but I've not tried either yet. I'll never understand why EA absorbs developers like Westwood, Bullfrog, and others only to gut them and still try to continue their series.

I think it's a good thing that EA/Ubi have their own store platforms though. Even if I don't like them much as companies.

 

[trparky]

Yeah, EA has a very bad habit of buying a game studio, gutting it, and destroying it in the process. Command & Conquer is a perfect example of how EA turns anything they touch into shit. It's like they decided to throw the whole Command & Conquer cannon out the window and gave every fan of the game the finger.