Median playtime on Steam

How long games are different from short games on Steam and what we can learn from it?

I’ve talked a bit about how many games on Steam are played for less than 2 hours and, therefore, might be eligible for refunds.

It seems that some indie developers are already seeing a lot of their sales turn into refunds, losing up to 72% sales because of it. Check their reports for yourself.

Thankfully it doesn’t affect everyone. For example Garry Newman, author of Garry’s Mod and Rust saw no negative effect on sales of his games.

We’ll need more time and data to see if refunds will affect overall sales negatively. Because for now overall ownership of paid games is growing, probably because people are willing to take more risk now.

Ok, but what about median playtime for games on Steam and how it correlates with price, copies sold and userscore?

Frankly it’s like you’d expect — people play good games longer and they cost more on average.

Here is less optimistic graph with median sales for games grouped by their median playtime. Steam, like the whole games industry, is hit-driven, so your average game doesn’t sell that well.

Please, notice the “magic AAA zone” between 3 and 6 hours — it’s where the best-selling games are. It also affect free-to-play titles, but probably for different reasons.

And here is a graph with average userscore. No surprises here. The better the game, the longer users will play it. Makes sense, right?

Do you want to know more?

If you’d like to learn more about Steam games and current state of its affairs, visit Steam Spy and follow me on Twitter.