We have significantly increased the accuracy of our player insights – average and median playtime as well as the country split of units sold.
Increased accuracy – Median playtime and country splits for games are now more accurate across all games
Quicker insights – Playtime and country split metrics used to take 1+ months since launch to be available. They will now often be available as soon as a day after the launch of a new game
Going forward, we will be able to also start showing how playtime and country splits change over time.
This is also a precursor for the long anticipated Player Overlap feature, launching in the coming weeks.
Free to play (FtP) has been a standard in the mobile games industry for over a decade now. In the PC and console world it became a bigger topic around 2017-18 when Fortnite took the world by storm. Suddenly, every large publisher needed to have their own FtP title.
But free to play really started at a meaningful level much earlier, on PC. There are the classics outside of Steam – Runescape (2001), Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (2003), Silkroad Online (2007) as well as examples on Steam – Team Fortress 2 (2007), DOTA 2 (2013) and so on.
Which brings us to the state of free to play games on Steam in 2024. This report explores the popularity of FtP within Steam and looks at the top games over time.
You’re not going to believe trend number 4! (just baiting you to read the report)
Video Game Insights provides free articles and market reports as well as a comprehensive data and intelligence platform for developers, publishers and investors. Use the menu on the left to explore our tools or search for any game or games company in the search bar above to get started now.
Games database now includes more metrics for our business subscribers
Business subscribers will now find 4 new groups of columns they can add to the tables – units, revenue, # of promos and average CCU by year.
Users can now easily see and compare how games have performed over the years.
All of the data is available as Excel downloads for the Business subscribers as per usual.
This will significantly improve the ability to do custom research and analysis with our datasets. We’re excited to hear how you’re using the new capabilities to drive business performance.
We’re pushing a major new update to the platform – wishlist estimates.
All Indie and Business subscribers will now be able to see how many outstanding wishlists any game has.
This includes:
Track weekly wishlist change in the Top Charts:
You can now see the biggest wishlist gains in the Top Charts, just like you already do for units sold, CCU and other metrics.
See how many outstanding wishlists any game has
Outstanding wishlists now appear in the individual games pages AND historical trends (but only starting from March 6th 2024 right now).
What about accuracy?
We’ve tested our estimates, and for majority of games, the accuracy tends to be in the same +-15% margin of error that we also aim achieve for our other metrics.
We’ll be publishing public test results soon!
Meanwhile, we are collecting datapoints to continue testing and refining our estimates. If you see large discrepancies, please do reach out!
We’re thrilled to announce an update to the VGI platform that’s set to redefine your data interaction experience. Our tables have undergone a significant transformation, now featuring a more modern design. With customisable tables and streamlined design, we empower users to explore information in a more personal and engaging way.
Customise Your View
One key update we’re excited about is the ability to choose what data you see. At the heart of this update is a new icon located at the top of our table. A simple click on this icon unveils a dialog box, granting you the ability to select the columns you wish to view. Your preferences are saved and automatically applied on every visit to the page.
Tailor Your Data, Focus on What Matters
We understand everyone has different needs when looking at data. Whether you’re interested in the latest game releases, pricing, rating or reviews, our platform now enables you to streamline your data for a faster, more efficient, and personalised experience.
Try It Out
Check out the updated tables on the VGI platform and see how easy it is to adapt your data view. Give it a go and let us know what you think!
Stay tuned for more updates and features designed to improve your VGI experience.
We’ve released something you’ve long requested for – filters for genre analytics!
Genre analytics is a tool that allows players to quickly see which sub-genres over- and underperform in the market. These new filters allow you to narrow down the pool of games being looked at.
Example on how to use the tool:
Say you’re an indie developer thinking of genres to focus on for your new game.
You’d go to genre analytics and pick the following filters:
Indie games only – exclude any AAA titles to make it more relevant
Price $9.99-39.99 – you’re considering a paid game, but under the high end 59.99 or 69.99 price points
At least 10 reviews – leaving out all tiny hobby projects
Min pos rating of 70% – let’s assume your game will not be hated
First release date – 2019 or later – make sure to only include more recent games in the landscape
This will leave you with over 8000 games in the comparison set and give you a picture that looks something like this:
Open world survival craft, colony sim and 4x games dominate that landscape. Say you like the idea of colony sims. Let’s dig deeper and add that as a filter.
From here, we can tell that survival element of colony sims (unsurprisingly) makes huge difference to games of this subgenre.
From here, a developer could look at the games database with the same filters and explore survival colony sim games and look at individual games in that niche.
Exciting news for our users! We’ve launched Competitive Maps, a new feature on our Competitive Insights page. It offers a thorough analysis of games, comparing their market performance in sales, revenue, player engagement, and more.
Key Features:
Compare multiple games to see how they’re doing in the market.
Rank games by metrics like sales or playtime.
Use logarithmic view for better data comparison.
Benefits for All Users:
Indie developers can download charts as images for presentations and discussions.
Business accounts can export charts as Excel sheets for deeper data analysis.
Competitive Maps is your new ally in navigating the competitive landscape of the gaming industry. Start leveraging this feature to sharpen your market strategy and decisions.
We’re happy to release a long requested feature – customizable dashboard. All users who are logged in are now able to see their own home screen – customizable with the most relevant charts, tables and news.
The first version of the dashboard has 4 types of widgets you can add:
Top games – showing the top 10 games of last week by followers, units sold, revenue and more
Steam market size – an up to date view of how the Steam market has grown
Latest articles and reports – recently published analysis from our team
Game performance – summary performance of any selected game on Steam
This is only the beginning. We’ll be adding many more widgets to the dashboard soon enough. These include custom alerts, genre analytics, game comparison views and more.
Wondering how the PC gaming market managed to achieve its highest ever revenues in 2023? Our global pc market report 2024 unveils the driving forces behind the growth as well as industry trends that will guide the market in the next 5 years.
The PC market set records in 2023 with highest ever revenues, units sold, peak players online and number of games released on Steam.
2023 saw over $9bn gross full game revenue generated on Steam with 580 million game copies sold and about 14,000 new games released.
Total gross revenue from game sales (excluding microtransactions) grew by 17.8% in 2023. This comes after several years of flat revenues as the games industry was recovering from the COVID boom.
PC games market will continue to grow at approximately 5% per year for the foreseeable future. However, 2024 is expected to be a down year. A weaker slate of new releases, combined with an exceptional 2023, makes it challenging to forecast growth for 2024, despite some positive tailwinds.
The PC games industry has become increasingly “winner takes it all” over the last 8 years. Top 10 releases of 2023 made up 61% of the total revenue generated by new releases.
Steam covers vast majority of the PC market these days and the trends on Steam are broadly reflective of other, much smaller PC games stores. Therefore, our report is largely based on Steam data.
Video Game Insights is not affiliated with Steam or Valve and all data provided is estimates.
Explore our platform to learn more
Video Game Insights is powering the creativity in the games industry through data. We provide free articles and market reports as well as a comprehensive data and intelligence platform for developers, publishers and investors. Use the menu on the left to explore our tools or search for any game or games company in the search bar above.
In this pre-Christmas update, we’ve revamped our game page. Let’s explore these new features, which provide deeper insights into the gaming universe.
1. Visual Media Display
Firstly, our game page now features a new visual media section. Located at the top, it includes game screenshots, images, and videos. Users can get a quick visual insight into the game’s world. The section highlights the game’s environment and graphics.
Carousel-like visual component containing game media.
2. In-Depth Commercial Performance Chart
The biggest change is our Commercial Performance chart. This chart provides detailed insights into a game’s market performance, including estimated sales and total revenue. The tool is invaluable for industry professionals.
Indie developers can download commercial data charts as an image. Business accounts have the added option to export these charts as Excel sheets.
Commercial Performance chart with filters for period, metrics, and export options.
3. Updated Player Insights Chart
Finally, we’ve enhanced our Player Insights chart to improve user-friendliness. All options are now neatly organised in a dropdown menu. Existing metrics remain available and unchanged. The updated design focuses on ease of navigation and quick data access.
This chart is especially valuable for our premium users. For indie developers, it offers key insights into player demographics by region. Thus, they gain a better understanding of their audience.
The business accounts benefit from more extensive data. They receive detailed game metrics from country split of sales to player engagement levels. This comprehensive information is vital for making informed decisions in the competitive gaming market.
Revamped Player Insights chart.
This latest update significantly enhances the Game Page, building upon the previous improvements.
Examine the example Valheim Game Page to see these features in action. Stay informed and ahead in the gaming world with our enhanced game page. Happy exploring!
