Steam's Best of the Year highlights the top-selling and most-played games of 2024

[midian182]

Why it matters: Steam's Best of The Year feature is one of those end-of-year events that has turned into tradition. 2024 saw a mix of older and newer games that were top sellers, and there are a couple of titles conspicuously low in the charts – or missing completely.

Valve never shows individual total gross revenue numbers of its best-selling titles; instead, it groups them into Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze categories.

The Platinum group features some of the best releases from 2024: Space Marine 2, Helldivers 2, Black Myth: Wukong, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. You'll find all of these in our Best PC Games You Should be Playing feature.

Steam's biggest games of the year based on gross revenue

Several older games are still making their studios and publishers money – Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3 are also in the Platinum group.

As the chart is based on total gross revenue for the year, popular free-to-play titles with in-game transactions, including Counter-Strike 2, Apex Legends, and Destiny 2, make up the rest of the Platinum category.

Scanning further down the list, it's good to see that Cyberpunk 2077 made it into the Gold group this year. After being universally panned on release, the RPG's long redemption arc has led to a Very Positive rating – its 94% positive Recent Reviews rating is just 1% off Overwhelmingly Positive.

The Silver Group features the likes of Dragon's Dogma 2, Diablo IV, and Stalker 2, which was only released on November 20 and recently became profitable. The FPS survival/horror sold a million units in two days – impressive, considering it's also on Game Pass.

The Bronze section of the best-sellers chart

As the chart is based on revenue, you'll find the excellent, budget-priced Balatro in the Bronze section. Silent Hill 2 is also here, which is a little surprising, as is Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which isn't. Another game that went from loser to winner, No Man's Sky, made enough money to enter the Bronze group this year.

PC Gamer notes that every game from last year's Platinum category is somewhere in the 2024 list, with the one exception being Starfield.

Steam games with the highest number of concurrent players in 2024

Steam also compiles a most-played list based on peak player numbers. The category for games with 450,000 or more peak concurrent players features the usual multiplayer games, as well as Black Myth, Elden Ring, and the recent Path of Exile 2.

Steam's top-played games with a controller in 2024

The rest of the charts are made up of most-popular Steam Deck games, which includes Balatro, Dave the Diver, and Hades. There is also a New Releases chart featuring Manor Lords and Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero in the Platinum section. Valve even includes a list of the top games played with a controller.

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Steam's Best of the Year highlights the top-selling and most-played games of 2024

 

[FaTaL]

It is insanely obvious Dragon age veilguard is loaded with positive reviews on steam by bots to try and boost sales.

Fail.

 

[Burty117]

It is insanely obvious Dragon age veilguard is loaded with positive reviews on steam by bots to try and boost sales.

Fail.

EA only handed out early access to reviewers who they knew would give it a good score.

There’s YouTube channels dedicated to Dragon Age that didn’t get a copy, and lots of actually trusted reviewers, because they knew it would be heavily criticised.

 

[godrilla]

It is insanely obvious Dragon age veilguard is loaded with positive reviews on steam by bots to try and boost sales.

Fail.

The price often reflects performance. The price is in a freefall compared to the other titles that launched significantly before it on the top of this list.
Even Baldur's gate 3 finally got on sale for 20% and is still more expensive at $47.99.
Gamers see through the sham veil no pun intended!

 

[toooooot]

It is insanely obvious Dragon age veilguard is loaded with positive reviews on steam by bots to try and boost sales.

Fail.

Bots are a part of our lives. They will keep using them from now on. On one side, can can fool some people, on the other, people will be trusting the scores less and less till those mean nothing.
There are better ways to measure a game's performance. Sales. Or rather how soon a company boasts about sales numbers.
My favorite example was tlou2, "the fastest selling game in 4 days," and then they never spoke of sales again, lol. Apparently, they could not or barely broke even. Silence speaks better than fake bots.

 

[axiomatic13]

I just finished MW5: Clans and I am about halfway through Dragon Age: The Veilguard. The game is perfectly fine. Anyone telling you anything else is selling you politics.

 

[PapaSpud]

I am a huge DA fan, I pre-ordered....watched a few videos and canceled. When it came out, I couldn't help myself and I bought a month of EA playpro, I shouldn't have. I only made it about 12 hours into the game and just couldn't be bothered to even load it up and try to finish. Written for pre-teens , feeling their hormones for the first time. I thought the writing on Anthem and MEA were bad before- they were masterpieces compared to this game. Supposedly it got better, but it was just not worth wasting my time on.

 

[Moochy]

As time goes by, I have less and less interest in playing my collection of steam games much less buying the new releases. There is really very little that grabs my interest or money.

 

[Ohnooze]

I just finished MW5: Clans and I am about halfway through Dragon Age: The Veilguard. The game is perfectly fine. Anyone telling you anything else is selling you politics.

Hahaha.... Right. Perfectly fine meaning extremely average for 7 year olds? Some of the worst writing I have ever seen. Childish acting and puzzles. Terrible game.

 

[axiomatic13]

Hahaha.... Right. Perfectly fine meaning extremely average for 7 year olds? Some of the worst writing I have ever seen. Childish acting and puzzles. Terrible game.

The combat loop is super fun and the parts you are critical of, the LGBTQIA+ dialog exposition stuff, you have to lean in to it to see it. Meaning, if you are a knuckle dragging incel, you have to make knuckle dragging incel dialog choices to see that the other characters support your knuckle dragging incel ways.
tl;dr You have to be seeking out LGBTQIA+ narratives in your response choices to NPC's to see that stuff, otherwise, you won't see it. So it's clearly obvious to me, you have never played the game and are only singling it out because of your bigotry.

 

[Burty117]

The combat loop is super fun and the parts you are critical of, the LGBTQIA+ dialog exposition stuff, you have to lean in to it to see it. Meaning, if you are a knuckle dragging incel, you have to make knuckle dragging incel dialog choices to see that the other characters support your knuckle dragging incel ways.
tl;dr You have to be seeking out LGBTQIA+ narratives in your response choices to NPC's to see that stuff, otherwise, you won't see it. So it's clearly obvious to me, you have never played the game and are only singling it out because of your bigotry.

Are you kidding? The puzzles are a joke, completely ignoring the political stuff, the writing is downright bad, are you sure you want to stand up for its writing? Because I can link you to people who have actually played it? I mean, here’s a comparison just between NPC interactions and cut scenes, I’ve deliberately tried to search for the non LGBT stuff so it doesn’t get in the way of the 7 year old kid who actually wrote this.

It’s a 17+ rated game, yet it’s writing is for 3 year olds? What’s that all about?

Edit: Added more comparisons to let people make their own mind up. I practically cannot find any video's on the "puzzles" because they are so damn simple not a single person out there has felt the need to create one.

 

[calvinblanes]

EA should release the Frostbite Engine to all devs worldwide for a % of their earnings with the product they made just like Unreal Engine. It's a shame such a lovely tool is rusting on a little shed.

Also Dragon Age 1 and Mass Effect 1 2 and 3 were f awesome, dialogs, so many posible outcomes, truly masterpieces in the history of videogames, it's a shame their products have lost so much quality they're just a 6.5/10 nowdays being generous.

Based just on my personal likings to me Stalker 2 is the GOTY by really, REALLY far this year. Haven't tasted a shooter that have everything of the best from the retro but brought into the new era in a long time, is just what I always dreamed, I didn't know I would be able to see it in my life, so grateful rn.

 

[axiomatic13]

Are you kidding? The puzzles are a joke, completely ignoring the political stuff, the writing is downright bad, are you sure you want to stand up for its writing? Because I can link you to people who have actually played it? I mean, here’s a comparison just between NPC interactions and cut scenes, I’ve deliberately tried to search for the non LGBT stuff so it doesn’t get in the way of the 7 year old kid who actually wrote this.

It’s a 17+ rated game, yet it’s writing is for 3 year olds? What’s that all about?

Edit: Added more comparisons to let people make their own mind up. I practically cannot find any video's on the "puzzles" because they are so damn simple not a single person out there has felt the need to create one.

Again, you are watching someone's decisions. I have not had this experience, and until you play it yourself, I don't trust these videos. Sorry, not going to bow to the haters.

 

[Burty117]

Again, you are watching someone's decisions. I have not had this experience, and until you play it yourself, I don't trust these videos. Sorry, not going to bow to the haters.

The videos I linked are just gameplay videos, just a recording of the game, there’s no difference. Nobody’s decisions or opinions in them, just pure gameplay, if you think that’s good writing… wow…

 

[axiomatic13]

The videos I linked are just gameplay videos, just a recording of the game, there’s no difference. Nobody’s decisions or opinions in them, just pure gameplay, if you think that’s good writing… wow…

No, they made different choices than I did in those videos. I did not see that part of the conversation. You're flat out wrong.

 

[Burty117]

No, they made different choices than I did in those videos. I did not see that part of the conversation. You're flat out wrong.

The entire point is how bad the "choices" are? There is no "being evil" or even being rude, the writing is literally for 3 year olds. Especially if you compare the options to the original Dragon Age:

Why does nobody in Veilguard actually get mad at each other? Or when there's a "dissagreement" they just sorta go "okay" and that's it? It's almost like everyone is being held hostage by HR...

 

[HardwareHunt365]

Speaking of top selling, during this Winter Sale I bought
- PoP: Lost Crown
- Outlaws
- Space Marines 2
- Silent Hill 2 Remake

Waited patiently for at least some discount to happen. Not all were purchased directly on Steam though as there were "other" sites selling for cheaper and I had no issues in the past purchasing from them

Also, Ghostrunner 2 was on my radar but luckily I waited - - it is now FREE on Epic Games Store!

 

[Ohnooze]

View attachment 90122
What will I do?

Mmmk

 

[Burty117]

View attachment 90122
What will I do?

I dunno, but damn, you legit think that’s good writing or story telling… I don’t need to say anything

 

[Ohnooze]

I dunno, but damn, you legit think that’s good writing or story telling… I don’t need to say anything

Yeah it's ridiculously bad. Amazed that they put the game out with such low quality writing as well as some acting. And those puzzles....I thought maybe this was made by Sesame Street or something. But hey I did like the hair physics.