Dozens of games are released on Steam every day, and although there are still more than two months left until the end of 2024, the current year has already surpassed the previous one in the number of new releases in Valve’s digital store.
Image Source: Valve
It is difficult to trace exactly when the overtaking occurred. Last week, video game researcher Brendan Keogh drew attention to the situation, and recently his publication was noticed by users of the ResetEra forum.
As of October 21, more than 14 thousand games have already been released on Steam in 2024, although data on their exact number differs:
- According to the analytical portal Gamalytics, the number of new releases on Steam in 2024 reached 14.3 thousand, while the result for the entire 2023 is 13.6 thousand positions.
- According to the unofficial Steam database, both figures are slightly higher – 14,393 for 2023 and 14,567 for less than ten months of 2024.
Thus, according to Keogh’s calculations, since midnight on January 1, new games are released on Steam on average every half hour. At this rate, by the end of 2024, the total figure may exceed 17.5 thousand releases.
Image source: Gamalytics
As ResetEra users noted, the lion’s share of more than 14 thousand games on Steam in 2024 are not outstanding releases, but frankly low-quality and/or extremely niche products.
SteamDB reports that out of 14.5 thousand, more than 10.5 thousand releases did not reach the required number of players and sales to gain access to profile customization features. Such projects are not taken into account in the calculation of game collections and trophies.
In addition to the number of releases, the Steam audience continues to grow. At the end of September, the service’s peak online number exceeded 38 million concurrent users for the first time in history.