We are once again being reminded that Valve’s Steam platform is the biggest player in town when it comes to digital storefronts: Fresh data from SteamDB show that more games were launched on the platform than ever before, climbing to all-new highs month-by-month and more than any other previous year.
In total, Steam got a grand total of 18,949 titles added to its shelves in the past year, with 3,973 new games added to it along with 14,976 “limited games,” which SteamDB explains are titles that are automatically flagged by the platform with limited profile features unless titles “reach certain player and sales metrics that give confidence that a reasonable number of customers that are engaged with the game.” In other words, of the nearly 19,000 games released to Steam, only about 20% of them were popular enough to be uplifted by The Great Mighty Rich-Get-Richer Algorithm.
Naturally, these data reflect everything added to Steam, whether it’s a heavy-hitter, an early access title that has completely fallen fallow, or any number of quickie projects, meme titles, or more awful games in both quality and messaging. For the cream of the crop, there’s the list of Steam’s best games for the year, which flags titles like Palworld, Final Fantasy XIV, Throne and Liberty, Path of Exile, and Lost Ark among the top sellers.
Some other interesting things to note in the charts: While discoverability on Steam continues to clearly be a challenge – surely you’ve noticed that “wishlist on Steam” has become the new “like and subscribe” – it does show that the number of games hitting Valve’s metric requirements are rising year-over-year, even if just slightly. The data also puts into stark relief the ever-growing mountain of moderation problems Steam continues to face, which the company appears to ignore wholesale according to a report from the Anti-Defamation League.
