12 games grossed over $50 million on Steam in H1 2024, with Helldivers 2, BG3, and Elden Ring in top 10

Discoverability expert and GameDiscoverCo founder Simon Carless has looked at the highest-grossing games on Steam for the first half of 2024. Here are the revenue leaders and other data on the state of the platform.

Games in the picture: Baldur’s Gate 3, Helldivers 2, Manor Lords, Elden Ring

Carless shared the results of the analysis in the latest GameDiscoverCo newsletter. Here are the top 10 games on Steam by gross revenue* in the first half of 2024:

*The figures below are estimated gross revenues (before platform fees and taxes) based on data from GDCo and Gamalytic

1. Counter-Strike 2 — $610 million;
2. Helldivers 2 (new) — $458 million;
3. Palworld (new) — $378 million;
4. PUBG: Battlegrounds — $276 million;
5. Apex Legends — $159 million;
6. Baldur’s Gate 3 — $127 million;
7. Dota 2 — $119 million;
8. Dragon’s Dogma 2 (new) — $108 million;
9. Elden Ring — $100 million;
10. Destiny 2 — $91 million.

Manor Lords nearly cracked the top 10 with $56 million (the game surpassed $60 million in gross revenue last month, according to Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender). It is followed by Last Epoch ($54 million), which successfully graduated Early Access after more than four years.

With the exception of outliers like Helldivers 2 and Palworld, Steam is dominated by live service games and evergreen hits like Elden Ring (also boosted by its Shadow of the Erdtree expansion) and Baldur’s Gate 3 (still going strong with only a few discounts).

The top 20 highest-grossing Steam games include eight brand new releases: Helldivers 2, Palworld, Dragon’s Dogma 2, Manor Lords, Enshrouded ($49 million), Ghost of Tsushima ($48 million), Granblue Fantasy: Relink ($40 million), and Tekken 8 ($40 million).

According to GameDiscoverCo, 74 new releases grossed between $500k and $1 million in the first half of 2024. For comparison, there were 427 older titles with revenues in that range.

The proportion is different for big winners. 37% of the games that grossed $25-50 million were new releases, and four of the 12 titles (33%) with over $50 million in gross revenue were new.

Games that grossed over $500k on Steam in H1 2024: new (red) vs. older (blue) releases | via GameDiscoverCo

Carless noted that there are 88 old games on Steam that make $5-10 million per year. While the number of top earners has been increasing year-over-year, this is largely due to the growing number of back catalog titles benefiting from their long tails of sales.

“Many of these older titles simply are evergreen. (Even if you’ve personally seen them before, many players haven’t.) And that’s the dynamic,” Carless concluded.

For more data on the top-grossing games in the first half of 2024 and comparisons with the same period last year, check out the full article.