The Steam digital distribution service has a virtual stranglehold on the PC gaming market. If you play games on your desktop or laptop, the odds are pretty good you bought the game there. So when it releases a list of the top selling games of the year so far, that’s a good indication of the market.
The Valve Software-owned service broke out the year-to-date top selling (and downloaded) titles as part of its ongoing summer sale and perhaps the most notable part of the list is how many legacy titles it contains.
Just three of 2018’s top 12 games were released this year. Just as many were released in 2013. And one came out in 2012.
Steam doesn’t rank the top sellers by sale, but here’s a look at how they rank by release date:
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Released 2012)
- Warframe (Released 2013)
- Dota 2 (Released 2013)
- Grand Theft Auto V (Released 2013)
- Rainbow Six Siege (Released 2015)
- Rocket League (Released 2015)
- Civilization VI (Released 2016)
- PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (Released 2017)
- Far Cry 5 (Released 2018)
- Jurassic World Evolution (Released 2018)
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance (Released 2018)
- Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (Released 2018)
A long-tail game, an industry term for a title that continues to sell long after its initial release, is the goal of today’s developers and publishers (compared to the older model of a big initial sales burst, followed by a trailing off of sales). But a game that survives for several years and still is among the year’s top sellers can bring in tens of millions of extra dollars.
PC game sales rarely track with console games. While Far Cry 5 and Grand Theft Auto V are among the year’s top console titles, exclusives on both platforms tend to dominate.