- 15% of Steam users’ gaming time will be dedicated to 2024 games
- 47% of play time in games up to eight years old
- There are many reasons for this, including more old games to play.
Steam’s year-end review has always revealed some fascinating trends in PC gaming, and this year’s is no exception. According to 2024 statistics, only 15% of Steam users spent their total gaming time on games released in 2024.
Looking deeper into the data PC gamer It reports that 47% of total play time on Steam was spent on games released in the last seven years, while 37% of that time was spent on games that were released eight or more years ago. Now the question is why and what does this mean?
One possible explanation is that players might be focusing more on their backlogs than on new releases. We know that playtime for current releases is higher this year than in 2023, as there was a 9% to 15% increase, meaning gamers are buying at least new titles. There are other possibilities for this trend as well.
Other possibilities for this statistic
One reason could be that older games are easier to access due to their cheaper prices, especially due to numerous Steam sales. There’s also the influence of Steam Deck and what is considered ‘Steam Deck playable’, as many recent AAA games can be too demanding for a portable PC.
There’s also the fact that older live service games like counterattack, dota 2and PUBG have made Steam’s most played games charts, while newer titles are having an incredibly difficult time breaking through and building a player base.
Another reason is that Steam has over 200,000 titles released over the decades, compared to the relatively paltry 18,000 games released in 2024 according to SteamDB. So naturally, more users will spend more time playing old games than recent ones.
Still, 15% of gaming time spent on new games is pretty impressive, compared to 2022’s 17% statistic. It means the numbers are recovering after the massive drop in 2023. Hopefully, next year we will see another increase, as players delve into more new titles.
