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by tpmx 1761 days ago
Do they really control 90%?

This four year old article puts Steam game sales revenue at 13% of the total PC gaming sales revenue (and 18% of digital sales revenue):

https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam-revenue-2017

Couldn't find any newer stats, but surely it hasn't grown from 13% to 90% in just four years?
2 comments
eropple 1761 days ago
That article doesn't make sense to me, even (or especially) in 2017. It sounds like it's conflating IAP (which doesn't have to go through the Steam store, unlike other platforms) with game purchases, but even that doesn't fully account for it to me.

Where's all the rest of the money supposedly going through?

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jcranmer 1761 days ago
Trying to dig into the sources of that article a little bit, what makes the most sense to me is that the $4.3 billion number is Steam's cut of the sales. If you go for a 3-4× multiplier, then you're looking at somewhere around half the total PC gaming market going to Steam.

Which kind of feels about right: there are other game stores; Ubisoft and Origin are the ones that cater to AAA publishers as well. Not to mention that things like the Microsoft Store could well cater to the surprisingly large casual game market (one of the sources quotes $5.2 billion for "Browser PC Games", which I think is reflective of how big casual games are). And you can find people who publish and distribute games outside of Steam.

So saying that Steam has a dominant but not overwhelming market feels correct. The numbers I see most bandied about are 50-75%, which look to be estimated from very old data from what I see. I'm sure if any competitor to Steam had reason to believe they were larger than Steam, they'd be trumpeting it as loudly as they could.

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NonContro 1761 days ago
According to Tim Sweeney, yes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2020/01/14/epic-games...

"Exclusives have been critical in gaining momentum in the presence of a competitor that began 2019 with more than 90% market share"

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Wohlf 1761 days ago
How is he defining market share? I find that number hard to believe simply because Steam doesn't have some of the most popular PC games like Warcraft, Fortnite, and League of Legends.
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