2025 Games Account for Just 14% of Playtime on Steam

Key Takeaways

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New releases on Steam account for only 14% of total playtime, despite a decrease from previous years.
Established titles like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, PUBG: Battlegrounds, and others dominate Steams playtime, with many being more than seven years old.
Factors contributing to the struggle of new releases include the retention of players in games with strong modding communities and the PC gaming culture of waiting for sales to purchase older titles at a discount.
The data suggests that the average Steam user plays only four different games, indicating a challenge for developers and publishers to capture players attention in a crowded market.

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2025 Games Capture Minimal Steam Playtime Despite Enduring Popularity of Established Titles

With the release of Steam Replay 2025, Valve has shared statistics highlighting the challenges new releases face on the platform. According to Valve’s year-end data, games released in 2025 accounted for just 14% of total playtime on Steam. While this represents a decrease from 2024, it’s higher than the 9% recorded in 2023. For context, one user, Mark Warren, spent 28% of his Steam gaming time on games released in 2025, demonstrating that new titles can command attention. However, overall, established games dominate playtime: 44% of playtime in 2025 was spent on games released between 2018 and 2024, and 40% on games released before 2018. These figures reflect the enduring popularity of titles such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Apex Legends, Warframe, Grand Theft Auto V, War Thunder, and Naraka, all of which are more than seven years old and frequently appear among Steam’s most-played games. The data also indicates that the average Steam user played only four different games in 2025. Although late-year releases have less time to accumulate playtime, the 14% figure refers to their share of total hours played, not sales or earnings.

Why New Releases on Steam Struggle Amidst Evergreen Popularity of Veteran Titles and Sale-Driven PC Gaming Culture

But why do new releases account for such a relatively small portion of total playtime? Several factors are at play. Single-player games with strong modding communities, such as Skyrim, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Elden Ring, tend to retain players long after their initial release. The same applies to complex strategy games like Crusader Kings III and the Pathfinder series. Furthermore, PC gamers often wait for sales, building up a backlog of older titles purchased at discounted prices instead of buying new games at full price. In conclusion, while these statistics demonstrate the impressive longevity of certain games, they also reveal the challenges that developers and publishers face in capturing players’ attention in an increasingly crowded market.

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