Depending on how you look at it, 2016 was apparently a year in which gamers stuck with their regular rotation rather than really diving into something new. GitHyp recently posted an article detailing Steam's most played games of the past year, and as it turns out, the ones with the highest number of average players per hour did not come out in 2016. Here are the top five:
- DotA 2 / 636,607 Avg. players per hour (#1 in 2015)
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive / 360,600 Avg. players per hour (#2 in 2015)
- Team Fortress 2 / 50,802 Avg. players per hour (#4 in 2015)
- Grand Theft Auto V / 40,258 Avg. players per hour (#5 in 2015)
- Sid Meier’s Civilization V / 37,885 Avg players per hour (#9 in 2015)
DotA 2, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2, and Grand Theft Auto V are about what you'd expect, but it is somewhat surprising that Civilization V managed to stick despite the fact that VI came out in 2016. Granted, Civilization VI did come out in the last quarter of the year, so it is possible that it just didn't have as many early adopters as expected. Coupled with the fact that Civilization: Beyond Earth was met with a lukewarm reception, series fans may have waited to see if it was worth diving in.
GitHyp does also provide a Top 5 list of the Steam games that hit the highest peak total this year, meaning that it only happened once. This list includes a few games that released in 2016, one of them you're probably very familiar with.
- Dota 2 / 1,286,617 peak players (#1 in 2015)
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive / 845,806 peak players (#2 in 2015)
- No Man’s Sky / 212,321 peak players (new)
- XCOM 2 / 132,834 peak players (new)
- Dark Souls III / 129,922 peak players (new)
Queue the No Man's Sky refund jokes.
