{"id":24694,"date":"2023-12-20T18:43:57","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T09:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=24694"},"modified":"2023-12-20T18:43:58","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T09:43:58","slug":"20231220-24694","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20231220-24694\/","title":{"rendered":"Steam says the average user only played 4 games in 2023 \u2013 what does this actually mean?\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Steam Year In Review 2023 has become a hot topic on social media since it was announced on December 19. Valve\u2019s new statistics feature gives individuals an overview of their gaming habits for 2023, but it has also uncovered some surprising stats about what average Steam users tend to play.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Your Steam Year In Review 2023 is now available! \ud83c\udf81 Check out an overview of your year, marvel in the number of hours you spent in just one game, take a look at how many achievements you&#39;ve unlocked, and more. <br><br>Just be sure you&#39;re logged in first! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8hF6QvSDS8\">https:\/\/t.co\/8hF6QvSDS8<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/DNTihB3nxH\">pic.twitter.com\/DNTihB3nxH<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Steam (@Steam) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Steam\/status\/1736818172614029318?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 18, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Although many users have been sharing their personal <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%23SteamYearInReview&amp;src=typed_query&amp;f=live\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Steam Year in Review stats on X<\/a>, the new analytics system also compares individuals\u2019 stats to those of the average Steam user. It gives a Steam Median score for the number of achievements unlocked, number of games played and longest streak (number of days users consecutively played games on Steam).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This data revealed some surprising facts about users\u2019 gaming habits. Despite the large number of titles available on Steam, the average user only plays 4 games a year. Furthermore, only 9% of the games that the average Steam gamer played this year were released in 2023.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Some really interesting stats in the Steam year in review &#8211; the average PC player does *not* play games the year they release during\u2014and plays only 4 games in a year!<br><br>Kind of a wild stat to consider. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4IfW8RNKcr\">pic.twitter.com\/4IfW8RNKcr<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Xalavier Nelson Jr. \ud83d\udd1c GDC (@WritNelson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WritNelson\/status\/1736881873324810424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 18, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>What is the reason for these surprising stats? Well, Steam\u2019s chart of \u201cMost Played\u201d games reveals that the top ten is dominated by free-to-play multiplayer titles, like Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2. Therefore, it is quite possible that there are many current Steam users who only play one title. This would explain both the low average number of games played, as well as the low percentage of new games played by the typical Steam user.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"994\" height=\"895\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 994px) 100vw, 994px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/20231220-24694-001.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-24706\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/20231220-24694-001.png 994w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/20231220-24694-001-380x342.png 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/20231220-24694-001-768x692.png 768w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/20231220-24694-001-600x540.png 600w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Taking a closer look at the stats using SteamDB\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/steamdb.info\/charts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Concurrent Steam Users chart<\/a> reveals that, although gamers are playing new releases like THE FINALS and Baldur\u2019s Gate 3, most of the top-ranking games were released before 2023.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking at Steam\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/charts\/topsellers\/global\/2023-12-12\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Weekly Top Sellers<\/a> reveals that most of the best-selling games from the past week were released before 2023. The stats regarding the release dates of games played by the average Steam user show that 38% were released over 7 years ago, 52% were released between 1 to 7 years ago, and only 9% were released in 2023.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"965\" height=\"853\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 965px) 100vw, 965px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/20231220-24694-002-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-24709\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/20231220-24694-002-1.png 965w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/20231220-24694-002-1-380x336.png 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/20231220-24694-002-1-768x679.png 768w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/20231220-24694-002-1-600x530.png 600w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It seems game developers are also noticing these Steam player trends. In a recent interview with the Like a Dragon series\u2019 creators, Hiroyuki Sakamoto <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/interviews\/20231030-22625\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">commented<\/a> that few Steam users play games on the day of release, but that when they do get around to playing, they tend to invest lots of time in the games, regardless of whether they are AAA or indie titles. With a yearly average of 4 games played, it seems that Steam users prefer to take their time to play through their back catalogues.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/yearinreview\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Steam Year in Review 2023<\/a> can be accessed here. You can also look back on your stats for 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:12px\"><em>Written by. Verity Townsend based on the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/automaton-media.com\/articles\/newsjp\/20231220-276767\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">original Japanese article<\/a>\u00a0(original article\u2019s publication date: 2023-12-20 16:41\u00a0JST)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We examine a number of surprising facts that Valve&#8217;s new Steam Year In Review statistics feature reveals about the average Steam user.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":24704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-24694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-global-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Steam says the average user only played 4 games in 2023 \u2013 what does this actually mean?\u00a0 - 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