Steam has released its annual list of the highest-earning games of the year, and it includes one or two surprises. Among the 12 games that generated the most revenue in 2017 sits Ghost Recon Wildlands (opens in new tab), for example, which I wouldn't have expected. The overall biggest earners also include evergreen titles like The Witcher 3, Rocket League and Counter Striker: Global Offensive.
To compile the list, Valve looked at game sales, in-game transactions, and DLC. It took the top 100 (the full list is here (opens in new tab)) and split them into tiers: platinum for the top 12, gold for the next group, and so on. That means there's no actual ranking—we just know roughly where each game placed. The top 12 earners, in full, were:
- H1Z1
- The Witcher 3
- Divinity: Original Sin 2 (PC Gamer's Game of the Year (opens in new tab))
- Rainbow Six Siege
- Dota 2
- Ark: Survival Evolved
- Counter Strike: Global Offensive
- GTA V
- Rocket League
- Warframe
- PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PC Gamer's Breakout Game 2017 (opens in new tab))
- Ghost Recon Wildlands
Valve also published a list of the highest-earning new games of 2017, split by month of their release. That list, which you view here (opens in new tab), contains some more obscure titles that might be worth looking up (I didn't know anything about space sandbox Avorion until now, for example).
You can also click here (opens in new tab) for a list of the top earning VR titles (including Superhot VR and Fallout 4 VR (opens in new tab)), and here for the most played (opens in new tab) games of 2017, grouped together by the maximum number of simultaneous players they achieved. Nothing, of course, came close to PUBG in that regard (opens in new tab). If you're interested, Valve wrote a blog post (opens in new tab) outlining the methodology for each group.
