Steam Rakes in Nearly $1 Billion in 2010

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

How do they ever estimate those figures?

Anyway, using that and NPD 2010 stats, retail PC game sales + Steam sales total about $1.7 billion, which is pretty decent. Numbers I seen for 360 are about $3 billion, and Wii and PS3 lower than that and not too much ahead of PC. Of course there is online from say Amazon but you can do that for any system so I'm assuming the majority of PC sales is retail + Steam while console is mainly retail.

I'm surprised Portal is that high up. Portal was never an expensive game and was very cheap at times, so it must have had some high volume!

And I wonder if MW2 and Black Ops numbers include every PC copy since they all require Steam, and BO is very high $. I went to buy BO at Walmart on release and they didn't even bother to stock a single copy for PC. On midnight release for MW2, the cashiers said they only sold a few PC copies (out of hundreds in line) and part of that was the two PC copies that my friend and I bought!

I think most of the consoles have digital services also. Xboxmarketplace. Wiiware? Don't know about sony.

 

[zerocool84]

I think most of the consoles have digital services also. Xboxmarketplace. Wiiware? Don't know about sony.

They all do but they are a very small percentage of the market for them. Space is limited on console's and people just aren't used to it. Also as opposed to Steam, console's rarely drop their prices for real full game titles.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I just had a terrible thought: what if steam suddenly started charging for their service (claiming bandwidth costs or whatever). They would have us in a really bad spot, especially since so many games not purchased through Steam still require Steam to play.
So basically, I like the cheap games you can get on sale at steam, but I really dont like it when a game that you buy at retail (DVD copy) requires Steam. And I guess I have basically a cynical and suspicious nature!!!

 

[n7]

The accuracy of these numbers is very questionable considering Steam does not provide FADE with any such information.

They basically guesstimate.

 

[paperfist]

If Civilization V made $21,900,000.00 US for Valve what in gods name did Firaxis and 2k rake in?

 

[lupi]

probably a portion of that 21.9.

 

[BFG10K]

Wow, Black Ops almost tripled MW2.

 

[smackababy]

I am a bit surprised by a few of those on the list. I didn't think BC2 did that well, but it must have. I really enjoyed it, but I didn't think it was a hit.

I do wonder what Steam pays per game license. I doubt they'd take a loss on much. If they paid like 55% retail for something like BO, they made a ton of money.

 

[pontifex]

They all do but they are a very small percentage of the market for them. Space is limited on console's and people just aren't used to it. Also as opposed to Steam, console's rarely drop their prices for real full game titles.

are you talking about xbox live/playstation network games or just console games in general?

console games in general definitely drop in price, just like PC games.

 

[pontifex]

Wow, Black Ops almost tripled MW2.

those are 2010 sales
MW2 came out in 2009

 

[juiio]

I'm surprised to see Portal on there. 20 million? Damn! I guess the news about Portal 2 got people interested/excited about it.

Portal being on there is especially weird when you figure that it was free for a while last year.