Steam gamers love older titles. That's the word from this year's Steam end-of-year review, Steam Replay. In addition to providing individual stats that provide insight into your personal gaming habits, Steam's end-of-year review shares data on gaming as a whole. 15% of playing time on Steam was on games that came out in 2024. Almost half of all playing time (47%) was spent on titles that came out between one and seven years ago. Games that have been out for eight or more years made up an impressive 37% of total playtime across Steam in 2024.
At first glance it may appear as if new games aren't doing well, but that's likely not the case. The 15% of playtime covered by games released in 2024 is higher than the respective figure from 2023. Last year only 9% of playtime on Steam was spent on games that came out in 2023. Looking back further to 2022, 17% of playtime was on games that came out that year.
My takeaway here is that many PC games age well and remain popular for a long time. Our colleagues at PC Gamer noted that live service games often top the Steamcharts. Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and PUBG BATTLEGROUNDS hold the top three spots right now when it comes to current players. The medal stand of games with the most current players seems unlikely to change any time soon. With older titles like GTA V living comfortably in the top ten, there aren't a lot of spots left for new games to appear at the top of the charts.
Best Steam games of 2024
Several great games came out in 2024. The fact that Steam gamers still love older titles does not take away from the work being done by devs. If you take a look at the seven games our Gaming and News Editor Rebecca Spear recommends, it has a bunch of titles from 2024. Sure, some of them are older, such as Baldur's Gate 3, but the highly reviewed Indiana Jones and the Great Circle only came out this month. Spear also has a large list of other titles that came out this year that are worth a look.
