Valve Highlights Top 100 Best Selling Games On Steam For 2016

You have to hand it to Valve, it created an ecosystem that virtually solved the tug-of-war over digital rights management (DRM) between publishers and consumers, making everyone happy in the process (mostly, anyway). As the largest digital distribution platform for games, Steam puts Valve in a unique position to pulse the industry at large and share interesting stats. Now is one of those times, as Steam's homepage currently lists the top 100 best selling games of 2016.

The list is a reflection of the top games as measured by gross revenue, not user ratings (though they often align). This is the first time that Valve has assembled a list of this magnitude based on yearly revenue, giving gamers a rare glimpse into the other side of gaming.

Steam Top 100

Valve breaks the games down into categories. There are a dozen titles that comprise the Platinum category, the best selling of the bunch, and another dozen in the Gold section. The Silver category contains 16 games, and the Bronze section rounds things out with the remaining 60 titles.

It does not appear that Valve arranged the titles in any particular order in any category, nor did it list the exact revenue that each one grossed. That means we can't tell which game was the top seller overall, just which 12 games beat out the rest. Those include in no particular order:
  • DOTA 2
  • Dark Souls III
  • Total War: Warhammer
  • Sid Meier's Civilization VI
  • Fallout 4
  • Rocket League
  • The Witcher III: Wild Hunt
  • XCOM 2
  • Counter Strike: Global Offensive
  • Grand Theft Auto V
  • No Man's Sky
  • Tom Clancy's The Division
Steam is the midst of a Winter Sale at the moment and almost every single top grossing title is marked down. Outside of free to play games, there are just half a dozen games we spotted that are not on sale, those being The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (well worth the $20 asking price), Rust, Football Manager 2016, Rimworld, Astroneer, and Factorio.

Hopefully Valve makes this an annual thing. With VR gaming picking up steam (no pun intended), it will be interesting to see what impact optimized titles have on the top 100 list next year.
Tags:  games, STEAM, Valve