Gaming analyst Simon Carless shared the revenue statistics of the most successful games on Steam for the first half of 2024. These are mostly free-to-play games plus projects from 2023, but there are also several new titles.

Top 20 most profitable Steam games, first half of 2024, before Steam share

  1. Counter-Strike 2 – $610 million
  2. Helldivers 2 – $458 million
  3. Palworld – $378 million
  4. PUBG: Battlegrounds – $276 million
  5. Apex Legends – $159 million
  6. Baldur’s Gate 3 – $127 million
  7. Dota 2 – $119 million
  8. Dragon’s Dogma 2 – $108 million
  9. Elden Ring – $100 million
  10. Destiny 2 – $91 million
  11. Manor Lords – $56 million
  12. Last Epoch – $54 million
  13. Enshrouded – $49 million
  14. Naraka: Bladepoint – $48 million
  15. Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut – $48 million
  16. Warframe – $46 million
  17. Call of Duty HQ – $41 million
  18. Granblue Fantasy: Relink – $40 million
  19. Tekken 8 – $40 million
  20. War Thunder – $36 million

As you can easily see, Steam’s most profitable games include 8 free-to-play games, 5 games released in 2022-23, and only 7 games released in 2024 – Helldivers 2, Palworld, Dragon’s Dogma 2, Manor Lords, Enshrouded, Granblue Fantasy: Relink, and Tekken 8.

Valve’s own games, Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2, have earned almost $730 million in just six months, plus Valve will receive 20-30% of the sales of other games on Steam. So why would the company take a chance with any other proprietary games, especially single-player games?