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AshenOne

Member
Feb 21, 2018
6,083
Pakistan
Top Sellers:

The Top Sellers list is exactly what it sounds like - a look at the 100 games earning the most revenue on Steam during 2021. To get the total revenue, we look at game sales, in-game transactions, and DLC sales for every app on Steam from January 1st, 2021 through December 15th, 2021.

Being the sixth time we've organized the yearly Top Sellers list, it's quite interesting to look back and see which games have become perennial champs, while also perusing the brand new hits that smashed their way to the top.

In terms of titles new to this list, 2021 was a good year for games making their debut in both the Platinum category as well as the list overall. Six games made their debuts in the Platinum category this year (
New World, Valheim, NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, Apex Legends, Battlefield™ 2042, and Dead by Daylight), with more than a third of the entire list being comprised of first-time Top Seller appearances. Many of these debuts are new releases for 2021, but a handful of older titles also cracked into the top 100, thanks to continued passion from their developers and dedicated community support from players.

Meanwhile, many of the perennial leaders continued to enjoy success on Steam. Dota 2 CS:GO, and Grand Theft Auto V all remain in the Platinum category for the sixth-straight year, which comes as no surprise to the passionate fans that launched these games throughout 2021. Five-time appearances in the Platinum category include PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege

A special shoutout to Destiny 2 as well, which has made the Platinum three years running since its Steam release in 2019.
Notes:

A couple of notes regarding the lists themselves. Since we don't divulge revenue specifics for the games on these lists, we sort them into categories to give an idea of how they stack up. Games are randomly sorted within the following categories:

Platinum: 1st - 12th

Gold: 13th - 24th

Silver: 25th - 40th

Bronze: 41st - 100th

The games on the Most Played lists are organized by peak concurrent player count and grouped into thresholds based on the number of players.

Finally, when generating these lists, we are looking at data from January 1st 2021 through December 15th, 2021.

Top Global Best Sellers of 2021 on STEAM Ranked by 4 categories within which they are randomly sorted:

Platinum:

  • Dead By Daylight
  • DOTA 2
  • PUBG
  • Destiny 2
  • NARAKA: BLADEPOINT
  • Battlefield 2042
  • Counter Strike: Global Offensive
  • New World
  • Rainbow Six: Siege
  • Grand Theft Auto V
  • Apex Legends
  • Valheim
Gold:
  • FIFA 22
  • Forza Horizon 5
  • Rust
  • Sea Of Thieves
  • Back 4 Blood
  • It Takes Two
  • Final Fantasy XIV: Online
  • Forza Horizon 4
  • Warframe
  • The Elder Scrolls: Online
  • Red Dead Redemption 2
Silver:
  • ARK: Survival Evolved
  • Monster Hunter: WORLD
  • Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
  • Age Of Empires IV
  • Halo Infinite
  • Cyberpunk 2077
  • Outriders
  • Phasmophobia
  • The Sims 4
  • Resident Evil VIIlage
  • Stellaris
  • Sid Meier's Civilization VI
Bronze:
  • Rimworld
  • Football Manager 2022
  • Cities: Skylines
  • Farming Simulator '22
  • Hunt: Showdown
  • Raft
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links
  • Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice GOTY Edition
  • No Man's Sky
  • Battlefield V
  • Planet Zoo
  • EA Play(Subscription)
  • The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
  • Call Of Duty: Black Ops III
  • Biomutant
  • Hearts Of Iron IV
  • Star Wars: The Old Republic(F2P MMO)
  • ARMA III
  • Fallout 76
  • Dyson Sphere Program
  • Stardew Valley
  • TOTAL WARHAMMER II
  • Crusader Kings III
  • Nioh 2 - The Complete Edition
  • SMITE
  • Fall Guys
  • Tales Of Arise
  • Halo: The Masterchief Collection
  • The Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth
  • Humankind
  • GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE-
  • Age Of Empires II: Definitive Edition
  • EA Sports FIFA 21
  • World Of Tanks Blitz
  • Bloons:TD6
  • theHunter: Call Of The Wild
  • Days Gone
  • DOOM Eternal
  • Satisfactory
  • NIER Replicant
  • Half-Life: Alyx
  • Fallout 4
  • NBA 2k21
  • World Of Warships
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition
  • Microsoft Flight Simulator Game Of The Year Edition
  • Deep Rock Galatic
  • Dying Light
  • Tale Of Immortal
  • Wallpaper Engine
  • Baldur's Gate 3
  • NBA 2k22
  • Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis
  • F1 2021
  • DayZ
  • Borderlands 3
  • Hades
  • The Forest

Edit: Also added in Top NEW RELEASES in 2021 also as measured by Gross Revenue. Thanks eonden

Platinum (top 12)
  • Outriders
  • Valheim
  • Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
  • Back 4 Blood
  • Age of Empires 4
  • Naraka: Bladepoint
  • Resident Evil Village
  • Farming Simulator 22
  • New World
  • Battlefield 2042
  • Halo Infinite
  • Forza Horizon 5
Gold (13-25)
  • Guilty Gear Strive
  • Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
  • Nier Replicant
  • Humankind
  • Football Manager 2022
  • It Takes Two
  • Biomutant
  • F1 2021
  • Days Gone
  • Icarus
  • Deathloop
  • Tale of Immortal
  • Tales of Arise
Source: STEAM Best of 2021 Top Sellers List
 
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Mifec

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,731
I wonder what the console to pc ratio for Sekiro is by now.

Glad to see ME, AOE4 and RE7 doing good. Amazed by MH:W too.

Not surprised by Cyberpunk, even with all the controversy it's in top sellers every week.
 

Mocha Joe

Member
Jun 2, 2021
9,312
Unless I completely am misreading it, shocked to see Horizon missing. Days Gone in bronze is surprising to me too.
 

Mifec

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,731
I doubt Valve doesnt get their cut somehow.
Since it's in the top sellers I'd agree with you. The api picks it up clearly.

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Top 'New Releases' as Measured by Gross Revenue

Delusibeta

Prophet of Truth
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
5,648
Of special note, there's a seperate top 25 for the hottest launches of 2021 (ie, these are the games that made the most money in their initial two week launch). As with the main chart, it's split to Platinum and Gold, and then randomised.

Platinum (top 12)
  • Outriders
  • Valheim
  • Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
  • Back 4 Blood
  • Age of Empires 4
  • Naraka: Bladepoint
  • Resident Evil Village
  • Farming Simulator 22
  • New World
  • Battlefield 2042
  • Halo Infinite
  • Forza Horizon 5
Gold (13-25)
  • Guilty Gear Strive
  • Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
  • Nier Replicant
  • Humankind
  • Football Manager 2022
  • It Takes Two
  • Biomutant
  • F1 2021
  • Days Gone
  • Icarus
  • Deathloop
  • Tale of Immortal
  • Tales of Arise
(It should be noted that these are exclusively looking at the first two weeks of each respective game, while the main chart is for overall revenue for the whole year, which would explain why there's some games in Platinum, such as Age of Empires 4 and Outriders that wind up below some of the games in Gold on the main chart, such as It Takes Two)
 
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.exe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,214
Fwiw, Halo Infinite is in the platinum category for games released this year, which is pretty decent. I'm not entirely surprised it isn't competing with something like GTA V's monster sales throughout the entire year. Comparing to Forza is also not quite like for like, since that has all those add-on packs and such that many buy into day one.

What's amazing to me is Terraria continuing to be beasting in 2021. What a success. That game came out ten years ago! Re-Logic has put in the work to make that happen with all the updates to the game, but its longevity is still pretty noteworthy I think.
 
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eonden

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,078
Humankind only making Bronze tier in revenue is probably not what Sega wanted (sadly).
 
Oct 27, 2017
3,571
And this is the exact reason why Sony's going all in on pc. Hopefully, I didn't miss any Microsoft titles from the top 100:

gold - sea of thieves, forza 4, forza 5, elder scrolls online
silver - halo infinite, age of empires iv
bronze - flight simulator goty, doom eternal, elder scrolls 5 skyrim special edition, fallout 76, halo master chief collection, age of empires 2 definitve edition, fallout 4

That's a crazy amount of titles.
 

Saty

Member
Oct 27, 2017
610
The money-value of the tiers in the Top 2021 titles must be different because Halo is in one Platinum tier and not the other.

Also worth remembering these lists don't include copies of Steam games purchased outside of Steam.
 

Deleted member 93062

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Anno

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,950
Columbus, Ohio
These are always fun lists. I was curious if there was any chance Dota might not make platinum this year without a TI battlepass. I didn't expect it to but if there was ever a year it'd happen this probably would've been it.

Two Forza games (and four Microsoft titles) in Gold is pretty funny.
 

eonden

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,078
The money-value of the tiers in the Top 2021 titles must be different because Halo is in one Platinum tier and not the other.

Also worth remembering these lists don't include copies of Steam games purchased outside of Steam.
I mean, its literally jsut "top 100 games by revenue". In Top 2021 -> "top 100 games by revenue that released in 2021". So of course the money values are different lol.

Then there would be no reason to circumvent Steam's API like Microsoft is doing. They get cuts of campaign sales, not MTX.
They probably arent circumventing Steam API without Valve knowing... and Valve getting a kickback. Otherwise everyone would be doing that.
 

Mifec

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,731
This is campaign sales, not micro transactions which are included in the top 100.


Then there would be no reason to circumvent Steam's API like Microsoft is doing. They get cuts of campaign sales, not MTX.
Do you think they have a special contract then, seeing how you can't be on steam and circumvent them for mtx sales? This is why EA left originally.
 

Orion117

Prophet of Regret - A King's Landing
Member
Dec 8, 2018
3,917
I knew the "people still play this game?" crowd in Destiny threads were living under a rock, but I didn't expect it in top 12.
 

Delusibeta

Prophet of Truth
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
5,648
I mean, its literally jsut "top 100 games by revenue". In Top 2021 -> "top 100 games by revenue that released in 2021". So of course the money values are different lol.
I'd mis-read the blog post, the new releases chart is for the games that generated the most revenue in the two weeks after release, so I've edited my post to clarify.
 

DevilPuncher

Aggressively Mediocre
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,685
The only title in the top twelve to surprise me is PUBG. I was under the impression that it fell off, but I guess not.
 

Deleted member 93062

Account closed at user request
Banned
Mar 4, 2021
24,767
Do you think they have a special contract then, seeing how you can't be on steam and circumvent them for mtx sales? This is why EA left originally.
I mean, its literally jsut "top 100 games by revenue". In Top 2021 -> "top 100 games by revenue that released in 2021". So of course the money values are different lol.


They probably arent circumventing Steam API without Valve knowing... and Valve getting a kickback. Otherwise everyone would be doing that.
Then that's weird because Steam's rules mention having to allow Steam wallet but Halo does not.

If they have a special contract, then it wouldn't show up here either.
 

Saty

Member
Oct 27, 2017
610
I mean, its literally jsut "top 100 games by revenue". In Top 2021 -> "top 100 games by revenue that released in 2021". So of course the money values are different lol.
But be it top 100 overall or top 25 for 2021 releases, all sales were made in the same time period. Why have different money-values for the tiers then? Unless if Q4 releases will have less time to gather sales and thus wouldn't reach the Platinum tier threshold of the general list.
 

Ashes of Dreams

Unshakable Resolve
Member
May 22, 2020
14,329
Wait, am I reading this right? Dead By Daylight is one of the top selling games on Steam this year?
 

Dave.

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,139
But be it top 100 overall or top 25 for 2021 releases, all sales were made in the same time period. Why have different money-values for the tiers then? Unless if Q4 releases will have less time to gather sales and thus wouldn't reach the Platinum tier threshold of the general list.
It is unavoidable.

Put it this way: Halo sold well in 2021. But there were several other games that sold better than it, that are older ongoing games. Destiny 2, PUBG, DBD, DOTA2, CS:GO etc. So When restricted to "Only new games launched in 2021" Halo is Platinum. But without that restriction, it is pushed down the ranks.
 
OP
OP
AshenOne

AshenOne

Member
Feb 21, 2018
6,083
Pakistan
These are always fun lists. I was curious if there was any chance Dota might not make platinum this year without a TI battlepass. I didn't expect it to but if there was ever a year it'd happen this probably would've been it.

Two Forza games (and four Microsoft titles) in Gold is pretty funny.
To me it seems like Forza titles are the PC crowd's most attractive MS titles alongside Sea Of Thieves.. Halo doesn't seem as favourited as much as Forza is on PC... i guess Global appeal of Forza is much more.
 

Deleted member 93062

Account closed at user request
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Mar 4, 2021
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It does. The game asks you to confirm the purchase for your XBL account, but upon doing so, you're redirected to Steam Wallet rather than Microsoft's checkout system.
Really? Unless it got changed recently when I bought credits it just straight up told me it will charge my card on my Microsoft account and didn't give me an option.
 

Big-E

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,169
Back 4 Blood is surprising, thought the launch was more tepid. It did better than Village, Halo, and AoE.
 

Theorry

Member
Oct 27, 2017
60,972
Happy Age 4 does well. There was some doubt about the game but seems to be a success.