According to the Research & Analysis division of analyst firm Forecasting & Analyzing Digital Entertainment (FADE), Steam and its Steamworks-enabled titles have generated an estimated US$468 million in revenues through June 2011.
In comparison, it is estimated by FADE that digital retail competitor Xbox LIVE Arcade generated a relatively paltry US$66.2 million in revenue during the same period. Unfortunately, clear figures on PSN sales revenue are not readily available for comparison
Valve was pioneering in the digital retail space, having dominated the PC gaming segment of the digital market for some time. Valve introduced Mac support to Steam mid-May 2010 and has since been shoring up the catalogue of gaming titles for the Mac platform. This has likely opened up a new channel of oft-neglected Mac gamers.
Portal 2
However, Steam is not the only option and is facing growing competition. Gamers Gate offers a slightly different content delivery model which doesn’t require users to log in to a client to access their games, and this has been resonating with PC gamers.
Gamers Gate CEO Theo Bergquist believes the digital retail side of Steam is currently peaking and they will begin to lose market share as competitors move into the space. While Bergquist had some figures to illustrate his company’s strong growth, we have no actual revenue figures from Gamers Gate with which to draw comparison.
Turning an eye back to Steam and its hefty H1 2011 revenue, with analysis from FADE; highly-anticipated ‘Portal 2’ led the strong growth of Steam, selling an estimated 1.1 million copies between the service and Steamworks. Portal 2 was the number 1 title of the year in both unit sales and revenues, with a notable US$56 million of revenue.
Indie titles came into their own this year by way of two hugely popular titles – Paradox Interactive’s ‘Magicka’ and Re-Logic’s ‘Terraria’. Both titles sold over 500,000 units during the tracking period, with Terraria having only seen two months of data since its debut in mid-May.
Revenues among all titles was estimated at US$468 million (±R3.141 billion), up from US$329 million through the same time period in 2010 – a 42% increase year-over-year. Steamworks-enabled titles were very active during the half with titles such as ‘Total War: Shogun 2’, ‘Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War Retribution’, and ‘Brink’, making the Top-10.
Magicka
Steam Estimated Top 10 Titles, by Units Sold (1st Half, 2011)
1. Portal 2 (Valve) – 1,128,000 Units Sold ($56.4 Million USD)
2. Magicka (Paradox Interactive) – 789,000 Units Sold ($6.2 Million USD)
3. Terraria (Re-Logic) – 580,000 Units Sold ($5.8 Million USD)
4. Counter-Strike (Valve) – 399,000 Units Sold ($2.7 Million USD)
5. Total War: Shogun 2 (SEGA) – 326,000 Units Sold ($15.1 Million USD)
6. Monday Night Combat (Uber Entertainment) – 264,000 Units Sold ($2.9 Million USD)
7. Brink (Bethesda Softworks) – 256,000 Units Sold ($13.5 Million USD)
8. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Electronic Arts) – 250,000 Units Sold ($4.2 Million USD)
9. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Retribution (THQ) – 224,000 Units Sold ($13.0 Million USD)
10. Borderlands (2K Games) – 204,000 Units Sold ($1.6 Million USD)
Top 10 selling Steam games of H1 2011 << Comments and views
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