Valve has announced the 100 games that have brought in the most revenue on Steam in 2016. The list is quite varied, ranging from top dogs like Grand Theft Auto V and the company’s own Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to more granular games like Stellaris.
The is the first time that Valve has put together such an extensive list that ranks games according to their total gross revenue for the year. The games are sorted into one of four different tiers, with 1-12 labelled as “Platinum,” 13-24 labelled as “Gold,” 25-40 labelled as “Silver,” and the rest falling into the Bronze category.
While the ranking doesn’t provide any specifics on which games within a given category placed higher than one another, what the total revenue was for any particular game, or how much of that revenue was from in-game purchases vs. the initial sale, it’s still an interesting breakdown of what games people were willing to shell out the most money for.
![The 100 Steam Games That Made The Most Money In 2016](https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/02/amxzceyav30tn8g3uwwz.png?quality=75?quality=75)
For instance people are apparently still spending quite a lot of money on Fallout 4, one of the year’s “Platinum” games alongside The Witcher 3 and Total War: Warhammer. Meanwhile, games with buggy PC versions at release didn’t fair as well as one might have expected. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided didn’t break out of the “Silver” tier, and Dishonored 2 was stuck in “Bronze” along with the first game which came out back in 2012. And, in news that you can take however you want, No Man’s Sky did crack the top 12.
One more thing that’s worth noting is just how well free-to-play games seemed to do on Steam. Dota 2 and Warframe were both near the top of the list while Smite and War Thunder managed to still place in the middle of the pack, demonstrating that the pool of free-to-play revenue is big enough to sustain at least a handful of games in the Steam ecosystem.
The news comes on the back of yesterday’s 2016 Steam Awards announcement, and includes discounts as part of the end of the winter sale to help the games that have already made the most money in 2016 make a little more at the start of 2017.
Comments
20 responses to “The 100 Steam Games That Made The Most Money In 2016”
Wonder if No Man’s Sky would still be in the top 12 after they calculated all the refunds.
Exactly my thoughts. I can almost guarantee a very very large majority of the userbase got a refund looking at the very low player numbers on steam.
Yeah. Interesting its gross profit, not net sales.
How about that GTA5 though?
Problem there is, many NMS players would’ve put more than the 2hr maximum time in – believing there was more to be found than there actually was. This is a fundamental flaw in Valve’s Steam refund policy; if a game can lead you on for over 120min before you decide you want a refund, they have no obligation to give your money back.
You’re assuming the refunding was particularly widespread and not click bait hyperbole.
It’s always the whiniest pedantic nerds who are the loudest.
It was quite widespread. The player drop off was quite steep on Steam. And steam had to make public posts reminding people of the requirements for a refund due to them receiving such a massive influx of requests for a refund.
The player drop off doesn’t necessarily mean refunds and the fact valve was reminding people of the refund requirements shows that alot of the people who bothered to go for one couldn’t get it.
Still shows a lot of people wanted a refund. and based on the amount of refunds retail stores processed as well. The game was heavily refunded. Rightfully so.
good to see rocket league killing it, I still feel a little bad for getting it free with psplus and then playing it forever. Also means they’ll probably keep giving us free add ons
Don’t. You didn’t get it for free, you paid for it with your PS+ subscription [money from which goes to the devs].
Not only that, you don’t even own the game. As soon as your subscription is no longer active, you no longer have access to any of the games which were granted to PS+ users. It’s basically an extended rental.
You say that like it’s a problem? Out of all the games I’ve played, there’s probably less than 20 that I’d want to always own. And I’ve been gaming for a long time now.
Extended game rental suits me fine. If I really love something I’ll buy it later, if I ever don’t have a PS+ subscription.
Less than 20? I reckon I could think of 20 old games that I will always want to own, just so I can go back and play them when the urge strikes me. Nostalgia is great!
In fact, here goes:
Half Life 1, Half Life 2 (plus episodes 1-2), Starcraft, Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander, Warcraft 3 + FT, Master of Orion 2, Civilization 2, Diablo, Diablo 2, Red Alert 2, GTA: Vice City, TES: Skyrim, Worms: Armageddon, Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, Dungeon Keeper 2, Portal, Portal 2, Rise of Nations, Age of Empires 2,Awesome list but just to be a troll…
We’re talking about PS4 games. LOL!!!!!!
I actually have the original boxes still for Half-Life, HL: Opposing Force, HL: Blue Shift & HL2! Plus System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Grim Fandango and a few others. But I gotta say… it’s pretty hard to go back and play them now. They all look REAL ugly and can be quite hard to get running on a modern system.
I agree that nostalgia is great though. I basically use my wii u ONLY to play old SNES games, because they remind me of when I was 13.
So I agree with you, I still think my number probably tops out around 20 though, but I also still don’t have a problem with the PS+ thing. Sure I’d rather NOT pay for multi-player but I have no choice. I still get to try tons of games for free and I can always buy the odd 1 or 2 that I’ll still want to play in the chance that I don’t have PS+ in the future.
Oh right… I forgot we were talking about console peasants 😛
On another note…. YESSSSSS Another HL fanboy! Have you played Black Mesa? I replay HL2 often because the graphics have held up alot better, but HL I always struggled to go back to because the graphics are pretty dated, but BM fixed all that… it’s missing the final Xen chapter, but I probably had just as much fun playing through it as I did playing through the original HL
I played Black Mesa but found it a bit dated. What’s really special about HL for me is the memories of playing it when I was 18 years old and just being blown away by this new world to explore. That, Homeworld, System Shock 2 and Deus Ex. Those were the big games for me in the late 90s/early 2000s. It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost 20 years since that time now.
Have you played HL2 Cinematic mod? It’s well worth a look. I haven’t checked it out for many years now but back when I used to play, it was hard to go back to vanilla after playing it.
Stupid double posts are stupid…
Also remember, you playing the game keeps their servers populated, which keeps more people playing, who then spend money on micro-transactions.
I’ve also bought a few crate keys and cars just to show my support, even when I have no intention whatsoever of changing my car’s appearance.
I did buy the Delorean car because I couldn’t help myself
I’m glad that the contempt by Bethesda about dishonoured 2 has been returned serve by a lot of gamers. For their anti-consumer policy and their atrocious PC technical launch.
Like I’ve said for years now, we are way past not pre-ordering due to publisher/developer contempt for us, we are way into the territory of not buying many games when they are launched.
I’ve got my own policy of not being fucked over.
I refuse to even look at Dishonered 2 till it’s heavily discounted and fixed. And it’s one of my most anticipated games.
PS and the idea that steam sales get a late sale discount is over, at least for me.
For the last two years of steam sales I’ve 30 games on my WishList 2 years ago, and now it’s 50 games, and not once have I seen a late sale discount. Every game has had the same price from beginning to end of the sale period.
Sorry, haven’t read all the comments so I’m not sure what you’re referring to with late-sale discounts, but just in-case, Valve did make a policy a few sales back to not do flash-sales anymore… prices stated at the start of each sale will stay that way wit no other discounts.
In other news, so stoked to see Warframe at the top. To me, it’s the best free-to-play model around. Most of the hundreds I’ve poured into Warframe have been for cosmetics, because the game looks so goddamned good… and the rest of the money has gone into unlocking slots for more warframes and weapons. Some people have been bothered by that in the past as it feels quite limiting, but the gameplay is that damned good and the grind for each of the things you can build is so sweet and so hard-fought, that shelling out 12 platinum for a new slot is definitely paid back to you tenfold.