Steam Gauge: Addressing your questions and concerns
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I had thought that LoL had run away with the market prior to this article. Considering that LoL is the most played game in North America and Europe seeing the number 2 game in that category (DOTA2) with that many copies is even more impressive.
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I'm kind of surprised you've had no pushback from Valve on this. If I saw a single IP doing 100K queries/day on something I ran, I'd likely block that. It does seem like a low enough rate (just over 1 query/second) to not really impact things though. Have they had anything to say about this?
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It's too bad, because Dota 2 is far superior. Even LoL fans can't deny (snicker).[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=26666131#p26666131:158la21s said:
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For the top 100 games chart, you should list player hours/median hours.
Awesome job though.
Awesome job though.
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How much would it cost for a group of people to do a smaller sample (1000, like Gallup) every month on Amazon EC2 servers? Unlike Ars, they could be publicly-funded and just release the data.
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=26666131#p26666131:2fgxwnx5 said:
Isn't but LOL isn't launched through Steam and the number of people that bother to link the two is insignificant given it's likely not representative of the actual population.
Also I'm having issues with the graph on mobile. I can't see the right most columns. I'm on IE11 on WP8.1.
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Wow, Deus Ex: Human Revolution isn't even on there? Not even a million players through Steam? I'm finding it hard to believe that FTL: Faster Than Light did so much better, as much as I love that space sim.
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The publisher/developer listing on the chart is off due to War Inc. Battlezone being listed as a Valve game. Every publisher/developer after listing 89 needs to get bumped up by one.
Edit: The release date also seems affected by this.
Edit: The release date also seems affected by this.
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I think it's pretty universally known amongst TW players that Rome: TW (which doesn't appear here) is more popular than Empire. The reason is - most Rome players don't use a steam version. I wonder how much off channeling affects things. For example, I have over 100 hours in the Binding of Isaac, but my Steam version has 0 hours of record, because I play the DRM free version. There are many more like this, in my case. So the % unplayed is probably even lower than the revision, because items purchased DRM free with a steam key addon (The Humble Bundle, most notably, and several Kickstarter games) are only logging hours for those connected to the DRM engine. This doesn't matter for the purposes of this reporting, since the focus is only on steam, but the takeaway is: Games released after March 2009, that were only released to steam, are likely dead-on accurate (ex: Skyrim) with the exception of offline play mode. If there are other release channels, it only reflects a slice. The biggest slice in most cases, but not all. Rome: TW I already mentioned, but M&B:Warband has a rather large following that steam doesn't even begin to scrape the surface of, and Arma2 (aka DayZ Mod). Those are just off the top of my head.
Valve has always been rather cagey about this sort of thing, and I'm sure they don't like the fact that data they may very well consider trade secrets seems to be leaking at an alarming rate. Flatland manual dropped a few years ago; Greenlighters leaking all sorts of random bits because they don't know they shouldn't be doing that; and lastly this: the website and interface structure leaking something close to actual sales data within a 10% margin of error. I do have to wonder if Valve will 'plug the security hole' or if they have solidified their position as market leader to the point where they've stopped caring, and let the chips fall as they may. Still, the ability to render corporate secrets by aggregating relatively benign bits of data from the published content on their website is a fascinating exercise.
Valve has always been rather cagey about this sort of thing, and I'm sure they don't like the fact that data they may very well consider trade secrets seems to be leaking at an alarming rate. Flatland manual dropped a few years ago; Greenlighters leaking all sorts of random bits because they don't know they shouldn't be doing that; and lastly this: the website and interface structure leaking something close to actual sales data within a 10% margin of error. I do have to wonder if Valve will 'plug the security hole' or if they have solidified their position as market leader to the point where they've stopped caring, and let the chips fall as they may. Still, the ability to render corporate secrets by aggregating relatively benign bits of data from the published content on their website is a fascinating exercise.
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These have been good articles, and this has been good work. It's the nature of the beast that people have criticisms about this and that.
I must have heard of Alien Swarm before this article, but for the life of me I couldn't have told you what it was, let alone that told you that it was popular enough to be so high on this list.
I must have heard of Alien Swarm before this article, but for the life of me I couldn't have told you what it was, let alone that told you that it was popular enough to be so high on this list.
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Sorry for a sort-of tangent, but this list right here is all the proof you need that PC gaming is alive and well. That there is 100 titles from the past 4-5 years that are either PC-exclusive or multiplaform's, and every single one has both sales AND players above 1MM!
And this is just from Steam... Imagine adding data in from GOG, Desura and the publisher-created steam-ripoff's!!!
And this is just from Steam... Imagine adding data in from GOG, Desura and the publisher-created steam-ripoff's!!!
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Steam Machines! Okay that's a bit of a stretch I admit.[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=26666303#p26666303:10miurl1 said:
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It is somewhat surprising that KSP doesn't show up in any of the charts. I've no idea how much it's sold, but it seems to me like it could've been a contender in the median number of hours played.
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=26666467#p26666467:27eu9pid said:
KSP is 168th in number of players, with about 645K by our estimates. Not too bad.
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Yes, DOTA is that popular.
Just look at the number of people that stream it on twitch (though this will probably include them having the program running in the background and not actually playing, whilst they do other things - like play another game, chat or do toilet/food runs)
But then again - it's a pity that you can't see the statistics for league of legends. The amount of hours for that game should be massive, even if its just Korea alone. Add in China and the rest of the world and it should be mind-blowing.
- surprised to see path of exile on the list. Well, the surprise is to see it on steam. It is a free game that I downloaded directly from the developers (though there seems to be less ppl playing nowadays)
Just look at the number of people that stream it on twitch (though this will probably include them having the program running in the background and not actually playing, whilst they do other things - like play another game, chat or do toilet/food runs)
But then again - it's a pity that you can't see the statistics for league of legends. The amount of hours for that game should be massive, even if its just Korea alone. Add in China and the rest of the world and it should be mind-blowing.
- surprised to see path of exile on the list. Well, the surprise is to see it on steam. It is a free game that I downloaded directly from the developers (though there seems to be less ppl playing nowadays)
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Kyle, thanks for log-lin plot. So about 2600 Steam games sold 1000 or more copies, 2100 games 10000 or more, 1000 games 100000 or more, 100 games a 1 million or more, and only a few games 10 million or more. A small dev with sale goal of ten thousand copies would need to get into top 2000 or so.
I would not give out your scraping code for simple reason that not everyone will have discipline not to abuse it. Many people using it concurrently may register on Valve's radar and impatient types will surely attempt scans with your query rate limits bypassed.
I would not give out your scraping code for simple reason that not everyone will have discipline not to abuse it. Many people using it concurrently may register on Valve's radar and impatient types will surely attempt scans with your query rate limits bypassed.
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=26666187#p26666187:2fmog99j said:
Does it also baffle you when people like food you don't like? Music you don't like? Does it regularly baffle you that other human beings might like something you don't?
You must be baffled a lot.
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Thanks for this Kyle, I appreciate the response. Even if the methods aren't perfect, I still think it's a really fun experiment and I'm glad you did it.
And yes, Dota 2 really is that popular.
And yes, Dota 2 really is that popular.
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Playing both Dota2 and LoL and every other Moba, I sorta get why people who never went over to LoL went to Dota2 AND why people who never played either have gone to Dota2, but WTF is with people from LoL going to Dota2, I just simply cannot understand it - it seems very much like continuing on dota1 with a new graphics engine, in the most unfortunate way possible. *shrug* different strokes or something.
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By the way, small request. Could you post most hours played for those top 100 games? Would tell us how devoted/addicted/loving we are compared to most devoted/addicted/loving person for each game.
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I'm curious which of these games are popular because they are free (dota2 and team fortress classic 2 leap at the top of the list are ones I am aware of).
Correlation with steam sales would also be interesting to know.
I wonder how many of these games suck? I remember reading forums on some of them and the players were trashing them pretty hard in the comments. Sometimes legitimate complaints, sometime unfounded.
Another fun idea is to calculate the amount of money spent on a user's steam library. Maybe that could be averaged?
A site that used to do it is http://wayback.archive.org/web/20120903 ... lator.com/
Correlation with steam sales would also be interesting to know.
I wonder how many of these games suck? I remember reading forums on some of them and the players were trashing them pretty hard in the comments. Sometimes legitimate complaints, sometime unfounded.
Another fun idea is to calculate the amount of money spent on a user's steam library. Maybe that could be averaged?
A site that used to do it is http://wayback.archive.org/web/20120903 ... lator.com/
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<s>Well that's obviously wrong Kyle. I own it from the Humble Bundle, but I've never installed it. Of course I'm in the elite 6% private profile club, so you couldn't have known that </s>72 Serious Sam HThe Second Encounter 1,247,792 1,247,792 Croteam Devlover Digital 4/28/10
Nice data, and thanks for the work. Any chance you could add a "total hours" or "total hours/player" column up on page 2?
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Just a note. I was trying to get lotro (lord of the rings online) running on my mac over the last couple days and one of the options was steam. While trying to use steam and lotro I could never get the game to load. It would hang on a white screen. Through this steam had me playing the game for fifteen minutes.
I appreciate the data and find it very interesting even if it is not realistic for it to be precise. The big picture information it provides is useful.
I appreciate the data and find it very interesting even if it is not realistic for it to be precise. The big picture information it provides is useful.
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=26666651#p26666651:212nayn8 said:
I'd love that too, but SteamCommunity doesn't break out which platform version of a game a person is or isn't playing...
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=26666297#p26666297:1eo2u9h1 said:
We must all be paranoid types who've set our profiles to "Private".
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Any thoughts on separating F2P games from each analysis?
Did not see it addressed in this follow up: How did you treat games with multiple App IDs? Examples: Civ IV, Betas for multiple games.
Civ IV
http://steamdb.info/app/8800/
http://steamdb.info/app/34460/
Betas:
http://steamdb.info/app/223530/
http://steamdb.info/app/219540/
Not sure how I got opted into the Betas to show up, but they certainly would count as a registered unplayed game by default.
Did not see it addressed in this follow up: How did you treat games with multiple App IDs? Examples: Civ IV, Betas for multiple games.
Civ IV
http://steamdb.info/app/8800/
http://steamdb.info/app/34460/
Betas:
http://steamdb.info/app/223530/
http://steamdb.info/app/219540/
Not sure how I got opted into the Betas to show up, but they certainly would count as a registered unplayed game by default.
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Something's gone wrong with the Publisher and Developer columns towards the end of the list - I know that Trine 2 is a Frozenbyte game and Dishonored is Arkane Studios, but this chart has the credits offset by one place, so Dishonored is credited to Frozenbyte and Amnesia: The Dark Descent is credited to Arkane Studios. I'm not sure exactly where the rot sets in but I suspect "War Inc: Battlezone" is not a Valve game.
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I bet EA is having a sad somewhere...and maybe someone on Origin is reading about it.
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=26667563#p26667563:1ayzc44r said:
Why would they be?
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ea-ori ... 0-6417168/
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I can't decide if I'm disappointed or hipster-pleased that none of my favorites are on the list.
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It'd be interesting to see some sort of charts for genre/subgenre popularity based on these numbers. Both owned and actually played. Raptr does something like this in its tracking, but only on a per-user basis:
On the other hand, figuring out subgenres might be more trouble than it's worth, given it looks like Steam just reports main and probably overlapping genres in the store's advanced search.
edit: I think if you did an "actually played" chart using data from a given day or set of days, you could partially avoid skewing by games that are loaded at the time only long enough to get free trading cards. In my case, the chart shown above was surprising to me, because I actually don't think I play many of those genres; like most people, a lot of my bundled keys are just wasted.
On the other hand, figuring out subgenres might be more trouble than it's worth, given it looks like Steam just reports main and probably overlapping genres in the store's advanced search.
edit: I think if you did an "actually played" chart using data from a given day or set of days, you could partially avoid skewing by games that are loaded at the time only long enough to get free trading cards. In my case, the chart shown above was surprising to me, because I actually don't think I play many of those genres; like most people, a lot of my bundled keys are just wasted.
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You're scraping profiles over http? Isn't there an API?
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/ ... ts/c8xgz23
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/ ... ts/c8xgz23
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