2023 was a big year for gaming in general, but it seems it was a particularly strong year for PC Gaming in specific. According to a report from VG Insights, which uses data from Steam and other sources to estimate sales with a fairly high level of accuracy, the global PC gaming market grew to $9 billion in 2023, an 18 percent year-on-year increase over 2022. This followed several years of steady yet slower growth.
Looking at individual games, Baldur’s Gate 3 was the easy frontrunner in terms of both units sold and revenue generated, followed by Hogwarts Legacy. In third place in terms of units sold was the breakout indie co-op horror hit Lethal Company, while Starfield was #3 in terms of revenue generated. In general, looking at the top lists, you see a focus on traditional single-player games and straightforward multiplayer titles. There are not a lot of live service or microtransaction-supported titles on the lists as the popularity of those types of games seems to be falling off.
Here are the overall top PC games of 2023 by unit sales:
1 – Baldur’s Gate 3
2 – Hogwarts Legacy
3 – Lethal Company
4 – Overwatch 2
5 – Sons Of The Forest
6 – Starfield
7 – BattleBit Remastered
8 – Resident Evil 4
9 – The Finals
10 – Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon
And here are the top games in terms of revenue generated:
1 – Baldur’s Gate 3
2 – Hogwarts Legacy
3 – Starfield
4 – Resident Evil 4
5 – Sons Of The Forest
6 – Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon
7 – EA Sports FC 24
8 – Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
9 – Lethal Company
10 – Cities: Skylines II
Overall, there were nearly 14,000 games released on Steam in 2023, but despite that number, it’s increasingly a “winners take all” market, with the top 10 Steam games making up 61 percent of the revenue generated on the platform. That said, VG Insights estimates that over 930 Steam games made over $1 million in revenue in 2023.
So yeah, 2023 was a pretty good year for PC gaming. How will 2024 fare? VG Insights predicts revenue may actually decline slightly, but there are still plenty of major games on the way between the likes of Dragon’s Dogma II, Hades 2, and indies like Enshrouded, so we shall see.
