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What were the twelve highest-grossing games on Steam in 2017? Steam has now revealed those titles, though as with last year’s list the ‘Best of 2017 Top Sellers’ aren’t provided in any specific order or with any actual data.
Instead the top grossing games are categorised into four medal categories. The top platinum category contains big-name franchises such Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Grand Theft Auto 5 and The Witcher 3. Alongside competitive titles such as H1Z1, Rocket League, Dota 2, CS:GO, Rainbow Six Siege and of course PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
Rounding out the top earners was Ark: Survival Evolved, Warframe and Divinity: Original Sin 2 – with the latter proving the surprise inclusion in the top tier of the list – meaning it outgrossed some huge releases (though it was in early access for most of the year, unlike say Call of Duty: WWII).
Divinity: Original Sin 2 gives us a good idea of the kind of sales needed to reach this tier. While there are collectors editions of the game, there are no microtransactions, and the selling price has been very stable, which means using Steam Spy we can estimate pretty accurately that the game took at least $40m for Larian Studios (minus Steam’s cut of course).
With 12 more titles in the Gold category, another 12 in the Silver and 60 more games in the Bronze category, it’s hard to gauge the level of success needed to reach these tiers.
From a UK perspective GTA V is obviously the top-grossing title. Creative Assembly’s Total War: Warhammer was the 2nd, appearing in the Gold tier. Sniper Elite 4 from Rebellion, Planet Coaster from Frontier, and Total War: Warhammer II landed in the Silver tier, putting them alongside the likes of Cuphead and Resident Evil 7.
