2020 was an extremely successful year for Steam. In December, almost 25 million players were logged in at the same time – Valve broke its own record again. The autumn sale was also a complete success, namely the largest Steam sale to date by revenue. But which games were it actually that brought the Valve platform such growth?
The best-selling and most-played games in 2020 are now known, as are the top-selling newcomers. We give you an overview of the most successful Steam titles of the year.
These are the big Steam winners 2020
There are few surprises in the top sellers, almost all of the top sellers also topped the weekly charts. The games are not ranked by success, Valve announced all titles in random order.
The 12 best selling Steam games of 2020
What criteria was used for selection? Not only the income from sales prices was included, but also in-game purchases and DLCs. This also explains why Free2Play games such as CS: GO appear in the top sellers. GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 benefit greatly in this category through their offshoots GTA Online and Red Dead Online.
What is striking? Most of the top sellers are multiplayer games or have multiplayer components. Only Cyberpunk 2077 is a pure single player game – and by the way the fastest-selling PC game ever. The indie hits Fall Guys and Among Us were able to maintain their success for a long time, mainly thanks to Twitch. Dimi explains in his column what important conclusions can be drawn from this:
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The 11 most played Steam games of 2020
What criteria was used for selection? This is about the highest peak value of simultaneously active players. All of the titles mentioned have broken the 200,000 player mark.
What is striking? In addition to multiplayer action, two pure single-player titles are among the top rankings. By the way, the long-running The Witcher 3 narrowly missed the top list and still had over 100,000 active players at the same time. Otherwise, Terraria stands out, which is now almost ten years old and received its final update in 2020. We tested the leisure-destroying build-up hit again for this occasion.
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Terraria put to the test: a masterpiece after 9 years
The 25 best-selling Steam newbies in 2020
What criteria was used for selection? The income generated in the first two weeks after the release on Steam counts here, both through sales price and in-game purchases.
What is striking? The top-selling newcomers are mixed, from solo role-playing games to battle royale. Remakes and remasters also had some success in 2020, for example the Mafia Definitive Edition. Horizon Zero Dawn and Death Stranding also achieved considerable success on Steam, having previously been PlayStation exclusive. And Sea of Thieves only became a hit with its Steam release after it had been largely unknown for years.
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Steam as a second chance: Late game hits
What about the big losers?
Of course, there are not only success stories from Valve’s platform. Most of the games that appear on Steam went straight back into oblivion and never make it out again. And that doesn’t have to have anything to do with the quality, there are always real pearls among them. At GameStar Plus we shed light on why even good games fail on Steam and how the developers deal with them:
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What else was announced?
Valve also released the most successful VR games, the best-selling games that left Early Access in 2020, and the games with the most controller users. Here you can find all placements.
If you’ve missed one of the Steam hits 2020 so far, the chances are good that you can dust it off cheaply right now. The big Steam winter sale will run until January 5th, we’ll reveal the best offers and biggest discounts.
Do you want to know which games were rated the best on Steam in 2020? Then take a look at our video:
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Steam Hits 2020 – These games were rated the best
Even more annual reviews: Of course, we not only looked at Steam, but also offer you overviews of the best games of 2020 by GameStar rating, the biggest gaming controversies in 2020 and the most watched games on Youtube.
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