JaggedSac said:
Or maybe ranking in a top 10 list is meaninless unless number of units is given for them. The number 1 game could have sold 1000 games. That makes the rest of the list rather unimpressive.
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Even if it was only 1000 copies every day, it would still mean 365k sales at the end of a year. Add the fact that on digital distribution the game will never lose shelf space and will keep selling "forever".... it's a win.
I already mentioned this before (I'm not sure if it was to you), the only figure we know about Steam is that Garry's Mod sold 312k in 2 years. It was released in 29th November 2006, and sold 5.7k in the first day, then went on to sell an average of 430 copies per day.
Now keep in mind that today Steam is several times bigger than it was in 2006 and wasn't as good as today... it was only after 11 months of Garry's Mod launch that there was a "BOOM" on Steam with Orange Box (Oct. 2007) and also with L4D/FM2009 (Nov. 2008), and the game hasn't charted in the last few months of that 2 year span from what I remember.
Steam is growing mad as hell. Here are some very rough estimates to give a more general view:
Nov 2006: Garry's Mod sells 5.7k in the first day, with 430 per day for the next 2 years => 312k.
Steam increases over 150% in 2007. Let's multiply the games' sales 2.5 times:
Nov 2007: "B" game sells 14.3k in first day, with 1075 copies per day for the next 2 years => 784k.
Let's say Steam increases over 150% again in 2008 (very probable), and multiply the games' sales 2.5 times:
Nov 2008: "C" game sells 35.8k first day, and 2687 copies per day for next 2 years => 1960k.
These are very rough calculations though, and many of the Steam sales increase is due in part of the staying power of the older games, so new games' sales aren't really increased 2.5 times. Also, there are much more new games coming out than there were before.
The upside is that Steam games will still keep selling after 2 years.