Black Myth: Wukong is a bestseller among the new releases of 2024 on Steam, while sports hits from EA are leading on consoles
Gaming expert Simon Carless, using data from his service GameDiscoverCo, summarized the year. He compiled charts of the most successful paid releases of 2024 on major platforms — PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Carless did not use specific sales figures. Instead, he provided the following statistics for context:
- All mentioned Steam games in the top ranking were purchased at least 1 million times. Most of them — 14 in particular — sold over 2 million copies. Another four exceeded 5 million copies sold;
- On PlayStation, a similar situation occurred, though 11 of the listed games surpassed the 2 million copy mark, and five others exceeded 5 million copies;
- The situation is different with Xbox — half of the games in the top sold more than 500,000 copies, and only four exceeded 1 million copies. Sales of one game in the top 20 – TopSpin 2K25 – were less than 200,000 copies.
For new releases on Steam, Carless presented two charts — based on the number of copies sold and gross revenue on the Valve platform. Let's discuss each of them.
1) Top 20 Best-Selling Games on Steam by Copies Sold
- The chart was topped by the acclaimed hit of the year — Black Myth: Wukong. It was followed by Palworld, with Helldivers 2 rounding out the top three.
- Other major franchises in the top include Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 (11th place), Dragon’s Dogma 2 (13th place), EA Sports FC 25 (14th place), S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl (18th place), and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (20th place).
- Path Of Exile 2, which launched in paid early access on December 6, managed to jump into the rankings at fifth place. Notably, after its full release, Path of Exile 2 will become free to play.
- Indie newcomers also made their mark on the chart — Chained Together (4th place), Liar’s Bar (6th place), and Buckshot Roulette (10th place). Their sales surged due to their overwhelming popularity on YouTube and Twitch.
- Carless specifically highlighted a sub-genre of simulators — first-person store management. According to him, Supermarket Simulator (7th place) is the perfect embodiment of the sub-genre. It clearly inspired the developers at O.P.Neon Games to create TCG Card Shop Simulator (16th place) — the second similar game in the top 20.
2) Top 20 Best-Selling Games on Steam by Gross Revenue
- The top three remained unchanged, but some other titles climbed from the bottom of the ranking into the top ten due to solid DLC sales and substantial in-app purchase revenue. These include Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 (4th place), Dragon’s Dogma 2 (5th place), EA Sports FC 25 (7th place), Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (8th place), and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl (10th place).
- Also making the top were games with smaller sales figures than those in the list above but with higher earnings. This includes titles such as DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO (9th place), Tekken 8 (16th place), Persona 3 Reload (17th place), and Dragon Age: The Veilguard (18th place).
Now let's move on to games on PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Here, one important clarification: Carless provides data only on the number of players because these charts almost coincide with revenue charts.
Top 20 Paid Games by Number of Players on PlayStation
- Black Myth: Wukong once again made it into the top three. According to GameDiscoverCo estimates, on PlayStation, it was played by over 3.5 million Chinese players — this is more than half of all its sales on Sony consoles.
- Half of the titles in the top ten are sports simulators.
- Only four games on the chart are projects published by Sony itself. These are Helldivers 2 (6th place), The Last Of Us Part II Remastered (10th place), Astro Bot (15th place), and MLB The Show 24 (17th place).
Top 20 Paid Games by Number of Players on Xbox
- Games from the Game Pass subscription did not make it to the top. However, Carless named the top five new releases in the subscription by number of downloads — these are Palworld, MLB The Show 24, Little Kitty, Big City, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
- According to GameDiscoverCo estimates, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 and Star Wars Outlaws attracted about the same audience on Xbox as on PlayStation. However, on PlayStation, their performance was insufficient to make the top rankings. On the Xbox chart, they placed fifth and seventh, respectively.
In November, the analyst extensively analyzed the situation with game sales in the Nintendo eShop. He believes that as of today, the picture on the Nintendo Switch remains the same. The release of the MySims: Cozy Bundle collection, which occurred on November 19, might have slightly changed the order.
