STEAM? Game Mode Rates vs Player Preferences
The distributions don't match as well as we might expect
THE BIG PICTURE
A recent article published by MIDiA, a consulting and research firm, says that a majority of gamers prefer single player games. A summary of that report and an interesting data graphic can be found here:
DISCLAIMER: I’m not affiliated with MIDiA, nor am I promoting their services. I just found the report interesting and thought I’d use it as a buoy marker for a dive into the STEAM? data that I’m studying. ??
Here is that interesting graphic with embedded attribution.
The data are labelled as a snapshot of 2023Q2 — which is when I assume the survey was performed — and segments players into six age cohorts. PVE in this case means ONLINE PVE.
THE QUESTION
The question to ask of our sea of STEAM? game data is, obviously:
Are these preferences among PVE, Couch co-op, Online PVP, and Single player games reflected in publication rates for STEAM? games?
The first task is to map these four categories to STEAM?. I pinged MIDiA for clarification and received the following helpful definitions: ??
For those who like details, the mapping of these groupings to STEAM? developer-applied category tags is described in the METHODS section.
The following data include this year through September 30, 2024.
ZOOM IN
Following established formats, we show the data by published counts and then zoom in a bit. Here are the raw counts of published games for these four modes since 2003.
We can make some simple observations:
We already knew that STEAM? is publishing games at a crazy, possibly unsustainable, rate , so let’s look at them as a percentage of all STEAM? games published.
This view of the data clarifies that:
CAVEAT: these four groups are not disjoint. Games can have multiple modes and can be counted in multiple groups. These dat are therefore about offered MODES.
You can get more detail about both CO-OP and PvP game mode evolution in these recently published articles:
ZOOM OUT
There is an obvious distribution mismatch between what people prefer and what’s published on STEAM?. Let’s plot the data since 2019 in the same format as the MIDiA research report to emphasize that.
We look at data since 2019 for two reasons.
From the graphic above we can make the following observations.
WHAT ABOUT “BLESSED” GAMES?
We should recognize that the increase in STEAM? game publication rates has coincided with reduced quality in some cases. Valve introduced a secret sauce game quality metric to help players choose — the Profile Features Limited flag.
What does Profile Features Limited mean? I’ve not found a STEAM? definition of the term, but the SteamDB site describes it this way :
Steam automatically enables profile customization features as games reach certain player and sales metrics that give confidence that a reasonable number of customers that are engaged with the game.
If you see the term Profile Features Limited then the game didn’t pass those hurdles (yet).
Let’s limit our data to the games without a Profile Features Limited flag, meaning “UNLIMITED”.
The flag is intended, by some accounts, to allow filtering for higher quality and therefore more desirable games. But the patterns are still skewed, even more so than for all games in earlier years. But it is also more consistent over time.
ONLINE PVE game rates are still rising faster in recent years than player preferences in 2023Q2.
Filtering by the Profile Features Limited flag reduces percentages across the board and in recent years SINGLE PLAYER games are relatively more greatly reduced. But we still have a great imbalance of SINGLE PLAYER games relative to the other modes.
WHY IT MATTERS
Intuitions about revenue and efficiency might lead one to expect mode publication rates to match the preferences of players. There are of course complications in determining an optimal distribution:
In addition, game development efforts can be focused through a different lens, for example:
WRAP UP AND SPECULATION
The distribution of games generated by the industry are, on the surface, a mismatch to what what gamers prefer, at least according to the MIDiA report.
On the other hand, raw publication rates don’t capture game popularity, e.g., player community sizes, or revenue.
That could be leaving gamers with fewer options, and possibly causing developers to migrate into what is perceived as more open territory, e.g., ONLINE PVE games.
Or it could just be that the top 2-3 big budget games-as-a-service titles supporting each mode are monopolizing player attention and spend.
There is a widespread belief that a few 362.874 kilogram gorillas are monopolizing players in ONLINE (games as a service) games. The skewing we see in the data presented here could result from game developers avoiding gorilla habitats.
RESOURCES
METHODS
The data presented include applications of type ‘game’ through September 30, 2024. Games with the strings DEMO or PLAYTEST in their name were excluded for all conditions. Based on an email conversation with MIDiA, the following STEAM category tags were used for categorization:
Online Co-op
LAN Co-op
Shared/Split Screen Co-op
Online PvP
Single-player
The mapping of the above tags to MIDiA group descriptions used was: