Steam is one of those things that we think of as almost ubiquitous as a gaming platform. You can buy many MMOs on it, it has its own social networking functions, and it seems that almost everyone has it installed at home. But here’s the reality of selling on Steam: the average game on the service will sell only 32,000 copies through the service, and the average price for those titles is minuscule almost everywhere other than MMOs, according to a piece analyzing a plethora of data from the service.
Whilst many parts of the piece aren’t focused on MMOs specifically (after all, Steam covers other games), it’s an interesting look at a major online service and network for games. It also sheds some light on requests for games to be available on Steam and what a successful release means on the platform, with Early Access games not benefiting much if at all from having a second “real” launch. Check out the full article if you’ve got a mind to learn a bit more about how the service sells.
