Steam 2010 Revenue Nearly $1 Billion

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Blue's News says that Steam took in almost $1 billion in 2010. Wow. Here is a list of the tops selling titles on Steam:

Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision) - $98.2 Million USD
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision) - $39.4 Million USD
Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve) - $36.0 Million USD
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Electronic Arts) - $25.4 Million USD
Sid Meier's Civilization V (2K Games) - $21.9 Million USD
Portal (Valve) - $20.0 Million USD
Fallout: New Vegas (Bethesda Softworks) - $17.0 Million USD
Metro 2033 (THQ) - $13.4 Million USD
Mafia II (2K Games) - $11.9 Million USD
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising (THQ) - $10.8 Million USD
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In other news, EA will eventually say it didn't make any money this year.
 
how much of that did Steam actually take in though? Most of that has to go back to the developers I'd assume.
 
I bet consoles due... but Steam only represents a small fraction of PC Game sales.
 
Nokia said:
console revenues a prob 3x times this. Didn't 1 on the cod on consoles made
over a billion itself.
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try 14x or 7x this, can't recall from the top of my head... I think 2009 or 2010 was 14.3 or something like that...
 
Yea,h but you have to admit that Steam offers some really good sales on newer and older games, alike.
 
Chilly said:
pc gaming dieing eh?
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know what? I actually rarely hear reports or reading articles of 'pc gaming dead or dieing', but what i DO hear a LOT of are post like this, which actually continues to perpetuate the notion of that platform "dieing"... which it's not and never was, it's only changing... so how about the whole pc gaming community stop posting like this and we can move on already...
 
Techx said:
know what? I actually rarely hear reports or reading articles of 'pc gaming dead or dieing', but what i DO hear a LOT of are post like this, which actually continues to perpetuate the notion of that platform "dieing"... which it's not and never was, it's only changing... so how about the whole pc gaming community stop posting like this and we can move on already...
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lol.. it's like trying to teach a dog to bark before giving him a snack... once it learns it's hard to unlearn.
 
I'm more surprised by how low then numbers are. 21 mil for Civ V, what's that, less than 500k copies? I'm sure overall the sales numbers are at least 10x that. I'm shocked that so many people are still going to the store to buy a disc in a box.
 
Steam is just the middle man......and more.....but you get the picture.....they supply the game.

The revenue is merely gross income, it would be interesting to see what the net profit was/is.

Still nice to see a company doing well, supplying a good service; that and the strength of PC gaming.

But hey.....what I really want is.... Half-Life 2 Episode 3, dammit.
 
magoo said:
Steam is just the middle man......and more.....but you get the picture.....they supply the game.

The revenue is merely gross income, it would be interesting to see what the net profit was/is.

Still nice to see a company doing well, supplying a good service; that and the strength of PC gaming.

But hey.....what I really want is.... Half-Life 2 Episode 3, dammit.
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No, the middle man used to be the publisher, who would sell it to stores. With DDS systems, there is no publisher, Steam is the end man. Developer makes game, Steam sells it. All middle men cut out, more profit for developer, more profit for Steam, which also equates to better deals for the consumer.
 
Damn piracy, they could have made 2 billion :)

oand and just to make it clear........NEW HALF LIFE INFO DAMNNIT
 
Aluisious said:
I'm shocked that so many people are still going to the store to buy a disc in a box.
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I'd rather have a hard copy, since my 3Mb internet sucks at downloading large games. Updates aren't too bad usually, but waiting a day to install a single game sucks.
 
Aluisious said:
I'm shocked that so many people are still going to the store to buy a disc in a box.
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Steam isn't the only digital download platform.

What I would be interested in is knowing the percentage of sales that are digital vs physical.
 
t0asty said:
how much of that did Steam actually take in though? Most of that has to go back to the developers I'd assume.
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Considering that Valve usually sells the games for the same prices as in store (at least at launch) I imagine that their cut is pretty sizable. The developer's eliminate the physical costs involved with a product which are sizable. My guess would be that Valve's cut is somewhere between 25-50%. Since it is a private company only those inside know for sure.
 
I am a die hard Valve/Steam advocate.

I love steam and I enjoy Valves games! I still go back and replay Half-Life 2 and ep's over again.

^ Yes I want a nugget of Half-Life ep 3 or Half-Life 3 now! I want to see some game play footage or at least what is to come.. Art work ect.. I dont care just something! Half-Life 2 IMO was worth every cent and some for the gameplay value.

I wish EA would take note of how a true developer supports its games.

Also I am so proud of Valve sticking it to Vivendi/Universal when valve announced it would distribute their game via steam.
 
Kalabalana said:
No, the middle man used to be the publisher, who would sell it to stores. With DDS systems, there is no publisher, Steam is the end man. Developer makes game, Steam sells it. All middle men cut out, more profit for developer, more profit for Steam, which also equates to better deals for the consumer.
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This is not true at all, of COURSE the publisher still gets a cut. They were the ones who supplied the developers with the money to actually develop the game and you think they would be ok with getting cut out of steam sales?

Do you think Steam always lists the publishers for each game just for giggles?
 
bazylik said:
try 14x or 7x this, can't recall from the top of my head... I think 2009 or 2010 was 14.3 or something like that...
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Well, you really have to keep things in perspective. There are likely ALOT more console gamers than PC gamers nowadays. I imagine if you take that into account the numbers will be pretty close (like number of copies sold/total number of potential customers or something).
 
The PC market doesn't have to be bigger than the rest of the entire gaming industry to be competitive. The point is that it is of respectable size compared to any one other platform. Of course it isn't going to be as big as the 360, PS2, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP and other misc. ALL PUT TOGETHER. But it certainly stands on it's own as a powerful platform.
 
Impressive overall number. What I find even more impressive, somewhat counter-intuitively, is that the top sellers are "only" $100 million. It shows that Steam has a very diverse income stream, which shows a lot of strength and they do a hell of a job highlighting and selling non-blockbuster games.

Steam has been the best thing to happen for PC gaming in a long, long time. I <3 Valve.

Oh, and Ep: 3. Give it.
 
TechLarry said:
In other news, EA will eventually say it didn't make any money this year.
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They actually posted a $330 million loss IIRC from the [H] frontpage...

TwistedAegis said:
Impressive overall number. What I find even more impressive, somewhat counter-intuitively, is that the top sellers are "only" $100 million. It shows that Steam has a very diverse income stream, which shows a lot of strength and they do a hell of a job highlighting and selling non-blockbuster games.

Steam has been the best thing to happen for PC gaming in a long, long time. I <3 Valve.

Oh, and Ep: 3. Give it.
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What you said, I feel as well. I remember when everyone was skeptical and when things were shaky at first they slammed it hard. It's done nothing but improve pc gaming as a whole. I'm glad those half life guys are doing really well in this tough business.

For those interested in making decent arguments about game companies making money, check out the top 5 gaming company's stock details. balance sheets, etc. It is a tough industry period and selling millions of titles doesn't always equal profits.
 
The absolute most impressive thing on that list is Portal at 20 Million.
Consider that it spent most of 2010 on sale and Valve freaking was giving it away at one point. Also, if memory serves, the game had extremely low development costs.

Unbelievable.
 
Good for Steam, and in turn Valve. Setting an example for digital distribution. Their sales (especially christmas time) iget me buying more games, and trying new things, just due to the price.
 
Techx said:
know what? I actually rarely hear reports or reading articles of 'pc gaming dead or dieing', but what i DO hear a LOT of are post like this, which actually continues to perpetuate the notion of that platform "dieing"... which it's not and never was, it's only changing... so how about the whole pc gaming community stop posting like this and we can move on already...
Click to expand...

Every 6 months or so there is a pc gaming article is dying. In fact we are due for one any day now.
 
wrangler said:
The absolute most impressive thing on that list is Portal at 20 Million.
Consider that it spent most of 2010 on sale and Valve freaking was giving it away at one point. Also, if memory serves, the game had extremely low development costs.

Unbelievable.
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Of course Portal had low development costs. Majority of the work was done when they made HL². Portal was given away in the Orange Box. Then sold seperately. Then given away for like a month or something. Now on sale again.

Valve is a genius when it comes to Steam. They are able to sell all their games indefinitely, while most other companies simply abandon their old software. I wish I could get a copy of Dungeon Keeper II that worked fine on Win 7.
 
wrangler said:
The absolute most impressive thing on that list is Portal at 20 Million.
Consider that it spent most of 2010 on sale and Valve freaking was giving it away at one point. Also, if memory serves, the game had extremely low development costs.

Unbelievable.
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Yea for Valve and Steam! Love what they have done for PC gaming.

With regards to Portal, it is refreshing that truly compelling content can pull in the $. It isn't all about advertising and hype!

Now where is Portal 2?
 
krotch said:
. I wish I could get a copy of Dungeon Keeper II that worked fine on Win 7.
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I'll tell you what I told my 11 year old.. "use the google" He had his running 15 minutes later.
I have it running in vista 32, win 7 64 and even in wine-bottler on osx. Juicy chicken flesh.
 
There is no point in buying games at the store any more. I have nearly 90 games to my steam account. Honestly I think steam has really helped the gaming industry on PC.
 
tubular said:
This is not true at all, of COURSE the publisher still gets a cut. They were the ones who supplied the developers with the money to actually develop the game and you think they would be ok with getting cut out of steam sales?

Do you think Steam always lists the publishers for each game just for giggles?
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Steam occasionally acts as the publisher but as the above posts is aying Steam is more a Distributor for publishers.
 
The reason Steam continues to separate itself from the rest of the online distribution world is how friendly they are to the way YOU want to play your games. I have been a happier gamer since building my Steam library.

I can uninstall any games I'm not currently playing.

I can reinstall them four years later (and I have, all the time) to play it again for a while.

I can uninstall it again.

They don't care! I love them for this. They hold the games for my use longer than I can keep track of the physical media. And having them never complain about bandwidth as I install/uninstall or put limits on it... is why I keep buying. I hope they never EVER change this. It's just the way online distribution should be. Thank you Valve/Steam.
 
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