SUMMARY
- Steam has released the list of its highest grossing titles in 2023.
- The list is mostly comprised of live-service games with some surprising titles too.
As 2023 draws to an end, Valve-run Steam has released its annual “Best Of” list spotlighting the top-performing games on Steam. The platform uses multiple parameters to list the games in multiple categories.
Steam’s Biggest Games of 2023
Steam has announced the stats of the best-performing games in various categories on the platform. The company uses data spanning from January 1 to December 15, 2023, to make these lists for this year. Thus, games that arrived later close to the closing date, have likely missed out on higher rankings, such as The Finals, in spite of their great performance overall.
The Best of 2023 🎉 is now available! Check out the top selling games, the most played games, the most popular games for Steam Deck, and more here: https://t.co/ClqaYx9kI0
And while you’re at it, don’t forget to check out the Steam Winter Sale and vote in the Steam Awards!
— Steam (@Steam) December 28, 2023
Although Valve does not provide the exact sales figures or numbered rankings, it reveals the top 100 Steam games in multiple categories. Steam has a unique system for ranking games in each category. The top 12 games in each of the categories are ranked as Platinum. Similarly, the consecutive games after 12 are grouped into a ranking of Gold, Silver, and Bronze respectively. The 100-game list is broken down into multiple tiers as follows:
- Platinum: 1st – 12th
- Gold: 13th – 24th
- Silver: 25th – 50th
- Bronze: 51st – 100th
The categories of Steams 2023 top-performing games are top sellers, best-selling new releases, most-played games on PC, most-played games on Steam Deck, highest-grossing early access games, most-played using a controller, and best-selling VR titles.
Steam’s Highest Grossing Games of 2023
The top 12 games on Steam, that is the games in the platinum tier, based on total gross revenue accumulated in 2023 were also announced. This list includes a bunch of free-to-play titles such as Apex Legends and Lost Ark. It also had paid premium games such as Hogwarts Legacy and Starfield.
- Apex Legends
- Baldur’s Gate 3
- Call of Duty
- Counter-Strike 2
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Destiny 2
- Dota 2
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Lost Ark
- PUBG: Battlegrounds
- Sons of The Forest
- Starfield
The Top 12 games this year on @Steam by gross revenue (in alpha order):
Apex Legends™
Baldur’s Gate 3
Call of Duty®
Counter-Strike 2
Cyberpunk 2077
Destiny 2
Dota 2
Hogwarts Legacy
Lost Ark
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS
Sons Of The Forest
Starfield— The Game Awards (@thegameawards) December 27, 2023
Apart from these top 12 in the platinum tier, the other games in the “gold” sales tier, that is 13th to 24th, include stalwart games such as Dead by Daylight and 10-year-old Grand Theft Auto 5. The Gold tier also includes newer releases like the Resident Evil 4 remake and EA Sports FC 24 to name a few.
Notably, the most debatable title to make it in the Platinum tier of the highest-grossing game, as well as most played, is Starfield. The game was released exclusively on Xbox and the RPG from Bethesda has turned out to be a great success for Game Pass. What’s debatable is that the game received a lot of negative reviews and was also review-bombed, and despite that it has performed well for Bethesda.
While Steam lists share insights into the nest games of the year, players can use it to their advantage by grabbing some of the bestsellers at the ongoing Steam Winter Sale, which offers some of the top games at heavily discounted rates.