Portal 2: A major factor behind Steam’s 42 percent increase in revenue – PS3, Xbox 360, PC
There seems to be a growing trend where gamers are moving towards purchasing, and downloading their games via online platforms. One of the major distributors of video game related digital media is Steam.
Operated and owned by Valve, the online platform is likened to the PC equivalent of Sony’s PlayStation Store and Microsoft’s Xbox Live Marketplace, Steam’s growth has been steady since its initial launch and now has an overwhelming majority of the market
share on PCs.
Research conducted by FADE has now shown a 42 percent increase in revenue for the digital distribution giant, saw its revenues shoot up from $329 million, at this point last year, to a staggering $468 million for the first six months of this year.
Terraria manage to rake in an impressive $55.8 million in sales revenue after shipping 580,000 units, in a span of bordering the 3 months mark.
The star of the show, or the past six months to put it more accurately, was Portal 2. The follow up to the surprise hit, and now cult-classic Portal, the game brought it $56.4 million in sales revenue and managed to move 1,128,000 units.
What makes the story almost ‘fairytale-ish’ is the fact that it was just an add-on, an extra in the Orange Box, which was distributed by Valve.
The game went on to gain a huge following, which was later put down to its unique take on puzzle based gameplay and its dark-yet-light humour. If anyone did not get the ‘dark-yet-light’ humour bit, then we recommend you check out the game for a better understanding.
The second game, however, was much more mainstream and received a relatively larger amount of marketing, that is seeing how the first game had nearly no marketing whatsoever.
Portal 2 currently stands as the top game on the Valve’s platform in terms of both sales and revenue, with Magicka in second place and Terraria in third.
It may come to a surprise for many but Counter Strike is still managing to rake in sales figures exceeding the million dollars mark. The game sold 399,000 copies (read, ‘downloads’) and earned its publisher a healthy $2.7-million, keeping it in fourth position.
Earning $15.1-million and $2.9-million respectively, Total War: Shogun 2 and Monday Night Combat have been doing sound business as well.
EA’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is also available via Steam and has earned around $4.2-million over the past six months.
It is important to mention EA here, as the Publisher has moved towards opening its own online distribution platform called Origin and has since removed some of its titles from Steam.
Whether or not Origin will bring a shift in the monopoly, which Steam currently holds, remains to be seen, but with titles such as Battlefield 3 and FIFA 12 it should make an interesting couple of months.
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