This week Steam showed us its top 100 selling games for the year. This is a list broken down into Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze. There are a host of games on the list that are quite unexpected, so we wanted to dive and look at some of the player trends we see. It is interesting where the PC market moves... Much more flexible and independent than consoles, is this the guide we can use for the game industry in 2017? If so, companies have a lot to think about.
Online PvP Games Continue to Grow
I am not calling them MMOs right now, however, anyone who tells you that the MMO industry is dead has not done their research lately. As you look at PC gaming and even console titles, more and more online games are growing. There are two groups right now that seem to dominate the landscape. Online PvP Games is what we’ll call the first group. These games are mostly arena style PvP games. Fun titles like: Overwatch, DOTA2, League of Legends, Rocket League, SMITE, and Team Fortress 2 run the top of a lot of game lists. The main reason is fast paced action combat against online opponents.
This format began in early MMOs with PvP being one of the main factors in games like Shadowbane and Dark Age of Camelot. Add in the esports phenomenon of Starcraft, which has grown a ton in the past 15 years and you now have a fully open environment for these games. This era will grow esports more than ever. What will be interesting to watch is how teams organize and promoters align events throughout the year.
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The only downside to this is that it creates a much faster-paced sub genre in gaming. The Online arena is great for fun, but some may argue that it lacks the depth of a robust Online RPG. For MMO players, you will have to find a good mix of both which will be harder to find in a single game.
The Booming RPG Market
RPGs have won over the past few years in games. In 2015 and 2016 both years have seen top RPGs win awards and sell millions of copies. The game industry continues to go down this road and more offerings are coming true. The one area for major growth in this market is the mobile area. Mobile games are great when they are simple and fun, but having an RPG with any real depth would drive millions onto the world.
For now you can see that games like Fallout, Dark Souls, and many others remain at the top sales across the board. Players are still hungering for titles that offer an epic experience. 2017 does not have a lot of offerings right now, but hopefully more announcements will come in at this year’s shows.
For now, there are a host of titles to enjoy. Tyranny being one of the most fun out right now. You can also dive back into some of your favorite with Elder Scrolls: Skyrim still on the map thanks to the re-release this past year.
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The Open World
With games like ARK still doing well. We have another great offering early this year. Conan Exiles is coming and it heralds in more survival style MMOs for 2017. Games like H1Z1 are also growing and now you have some new ideas coming into the survival genre. This is an area that is best to watch. These games do well and are becoming much more flushed out. All of these fit into MMOs, and it's only a matter of time before one catches our site's audience's attention. It's an area where we’ll likely see the most growth in 2017.
