2016’s top 100 selling games on Steam revealed

100 selling games

Steam is without a doubt the place for games to go to be released on PC, unless it’s an EA game in which case Origin occupies a special place for you to play Battlefield, Titanfall and FIFA. Still though, when Steam release a list of the best selling items on their platform in 2016, it’s bound to be interesting as well as in some cases surprising. That is until you realize that the results are based on gross revenue – so this doesn’t take into account any discounts, taxes or refunds. This last point will definitely explain the inclusion of one game in the higher echelon…

The top 100 games sold were split into 4 categories with no definitive list of 100 – 1. The top 12 achieved “Platinum” status, the next 12 achieved “Gold” status, the next 16 achieved “Silver” status and the remaining 60 achieved “Bronze” status.

Included in the bronze items were the Steam Controller, Age of Empires II: HD Edition, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Astoneer. Age of Empires II was originally released way back in another millennium, back in 1999 with the remastered version coming out in 2013, whereas at the other end of the time spectrum, Astoneer was only released on early access on December 15, 2016 selling a similar amount in just 2 weeks as Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Dishonoured 2 – which also made the bronze list. Interestingly though, the Steam Controller was the only item on the top 100 list that wasn’t a game. Other noteworthy bronze games, included the free to play: Path of Exile; soccer management simulator: Football Manager 2017; EA’s life simulator The Sims 3; Konami and Kojima’s final collaboration Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and the ever popular zombie shooter Left 4 Dead 2. Before we move onto the silver games, check out the launch trailer for Astoneer.

The 16 silver games only had 5 games from 2016 among their ranks, including Watch Dogs 2, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Planet Coaster, Hearts of Iron IV and Far Cry Primal. To be honest, I was quite surprised that Watch Dogs 2 and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided only achieved silver status, which was the same as the free to play War Thunder and Smite as well as older games Civilization V, Rust, PayDay 2, Europa Universalis IV and Subnautica. One game that I wasn’t surprised to see on the list was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (not the Special Edition) with a surge of Skyrim popularity and exposure with the HD remaster coming out this year a lot of gamers seem to have wanted to go for the original version of the game. Anyway, before you have a brief look at the 12 gold games, check out the announcement trailer for Europa Universalis IV.

The 12 gold games included 6 games that were actually released in 2016, those games being: Stellaris, DOOM, Dead by Daylight, Stardew Valley, H1Z1: King of the Kill and Rise of the Tomb Raider. There were 2 Free to Play games included in the silver list in Team Fortress 2 and Warframe as well as Call of Duty: Black Ops III – which is perhaps not a massive surprise to gamers, especially considering that it came out in late 2015 and was still in its prime, especially in the early months of the year. The 3 other games to round off the 12 gold games were Arma III, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege and ARK: Survival Evolved. Before we take a good look at the top 12 platinum games, let’s check out the trailer for DOOM.

Since the top 12 platinum games are in no particular order, I’ll add some much needed order to it so check out the trailers for the top 12 selling games (gross sales remember…) in alphabetical order.

Civilization VI

Counter-Striker: Global Offensive

Dark Souls III

Dota 2

Fallout 4

Grand Theft Auto V

No Man’s Sky

Rocket League

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Tom Clancy’s The Division

Total War: WARHAMMER

XCOM 2

Obviously the big surprise among the platinum games is No Man’s Sky, until I remind you yet again that this is based on gross revenue, so it doesn’t include refunds or discounts, otherwise I would suspect the game would be a lot lower down the list. Otherwise the surprises could be seen to be that not only are Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) and Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) still massively popular games but they are still massively popular sellers years after their initial release. CS:GO and GTA V aren’t the only older (as in pre-2016) games in the platinum list, with Fallout 4, The Witcher 3, Rocket League and Dota 2 all coming out in 2015 apart from Dota 2 which came out in 2013. Finally though, despite being the most recently released game, and the most expensive in the platinum category, the first Civilization game in 6 years – Civilization VI – is a part of the top 12 selling games of 2016 on Steam and with good cause – it’s absolutely fantastic.

But there you have it, a run down of some of the top 100 selling items on Steam in 2016. Which games were you surprised to see included? Which were you surprised to not see? Let us know in the comments below, the RGM Forums or on Twitter. If you like what you’ve read then feel free to share this article on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pintrest or Reddit using the buttons available!