2024 is sort of over. Within the ultimate throes of what has been a horrible 12 months for the video games trade and the media that covers it, however a superb one by way of the variety of high quality video games that have been launched, we are able to lastly look again at some uncooked knowledge about our favorite passion.
Properly, not less than so far as Steam is anxious. Which, contemplating how dominant Valve’s platform is on PC, it’s a reasonably correct image of the trade.
Steam knowledge aggregator SteamDB, a web site that everybody (ourselves included) has used to trace how effectively each new launch has been doing, and whether or not this or that highly-anticipated sequel managed to match or beat its predecessor in participant numbers, has launched its end-of-year outcomes.
The stats web page provides a reasonably temporary, common have a look at the state of sport releases on Steam in 2024. In response to SteamDB, 18,949 new video games have been launched on Steam this 12 months, beating final 12 months’s 14,310 by fairly a margin. The truth is, with one exception, the variety of new video games every year has climbed effectively above the 12 months prior.
The soar between 2023 and 2024, nevertheless, could be the largest but for a single 12 months, indicating that the muddle and discoverability issues will stay in 2025 and past. These figures, after all, embody every little thing launched that 12 months, together with free video games, experiments, joke video games, scholar tasks and video games you and I’ll by no means hear of.
The report additionally reveals that of the almost 19,000 new video games, solely 3,973 have been standard sufficient to be rolled into Steam profile options, permitting them to supply collectible Buying and selling Playing cards, emojis and different customisation objects. Solely these video games’ achievements might rely in the direction of a person’s complete, too.
In essence, solely 3,973 managed to get seen by gamers for Valve to permit them to entry these prolonged options, which is a bit over 20% of all video games launched in 2024 on the platform. The excellent news is that it’s a determine that has been rising yearly, too, so the viewers’s capability for brand new titles is rising, if solely barely.