Does Valve factor in retail copies when talking about their steam user base?

[-Slacker-]

Just like the title asks ---

So when valve discloses that their steam community has grown to xyz amount once or twice a year, are they referring to people who bought games digitally from them, or do they include everyone who buys retail copies with steam as drm?

I realize the answer may be a bit obvious when you ask yourself why would they separate the two groups in the first place, but when I think about their latest reveal of 55 million (probably going on 60 now), it just seems kind of small if it also includes retail copies ... so I want to make sure if that's the case.

 

[crownjules]

The word community to me suggests they're counting how many Steam accounts have been created.

 

[KaOTiK]

The word community to me suggests they're counting how many Steam accounts have been created.

bingo

 

[-Slacker-]

Sounds like the non-mmo/ftp PC market is at best, barely larger than that of the ps3 or 360, then.

 

[ThinClient]

If you activate a retail copy of a game on Steam, Steam needs to verify that retail key with the game company. They know whether the game was activated via Steam.

1+1=2

 

[BladeVenom]

Sounds like the non-mmo/ftp PC market is at best, barely larger than that of the ps3 or 360, then.

Why would you not include MMO's?

Then there's the biggest PC gaming market, which is casual games. They may not get much respect around here, but it is huge.

 

[gorcorps]

Sounds like the non-mmo/ftp PC market is at best, barely larger than that of the ps3 or 360, then.

Where are you getting your numbers? I'm just curious what they are and how they word the statistics they're comparing.

 

[-Slacker-]

^Just some very rough estimates that I came up with straight from the back from my head...

I remember a report from the end of December last year that steam reached 55 million accounts ... then I thought that most accounts on other DD stores are probably not unique - as in most people who have accounts on GoG, Origin etc probably have an account with Steam also - and, right now, I don't see how those could add up to more than ~10 million. Finally, based on what I've heard about retail copy sales being dwarfed by DD these days, I figured that the number of people who buy retail-only is also probably small, comparatively (although, looking at the graph that Blade posted right above, that doesn't seem like the case).

That was my reasoning, anyway, but now 2.1 bln form boxed games vs 2.5 bln on DD does seem pretty decent.


edit:By the way, BladeVenom, where did you find that graph?