The highest grossing games for the PC storefront, Steam, have been announced in this year’s top hundred games as measured by gross revenue, and quite a few of them are free-to-play titles. The games are listed in Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze tiers. The Platinum tier features the twelve highest grossing games of 2021, and are as follows:
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege – Ubisoft (2015)
- Battlefield 2042 – EA DICE (2021)
- Destiny 2 – Bungie (2019)
- Valheim – Iron Gate (2021)
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive – Valve (2012)
- Grand Theft Auto V – Rockstar North (2015)
- Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds – Krafton (2017)
- Naraka Bladepoint – 24 Entertainment (2021)
- Dota 2 – Valve (2013)
- Dead By Daylight – Behaviour Interactive (2016)
- Apex Legends – Respawn Entertainment (2020)
- New World – Amazon Games (2021)
Of the twelve games, Steam’s owner Valve and publisher EA have been the most profitable with two games each featured in the Platinum tier. Interestingly, four of the games in this tier are also free-to-play games, meaning that they became the highest earning games of 2021 solely through in-game purchases. Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds will also become free-to-play in January 2022.
The one thing that links all the games in the top tier is that they all feature online multiplayer as a main component of gameplay. While some of the games, such as Grand Theft Auto V and Battlefield 2042 do have single player campaigns, it is the online component which keeps players returning and actively playing.
(All information was provided by NME)