Oliver Mitchell

Top Selling Games on Steam of 2023: A Year in Review and Winter Sale Highlights

As the year draws to a close, Steam has unveiled its roster of the top-grossing video games for 2023, a diverse collection that spans new releases, enduring favorites, and a few unexpected contenders. This curated list not only serves as a retrospective of gaming trends but also coincides with Steam's winter sale, giving players an opportunity to explore and purchase some of the year’s most successful titles at reduced prices.

Steam's compilation of the year's 100 top sellers spans from the start of the year to mid-December and categorizes these hits into four revenue-based tiers: Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze. The Platinum tier is reserved for the top 12 sellers, Gold features the next 12, Silver showcases places 25 to 50, and Bronze rounds out the list with placements of 51 to 100. While Steam has chosen not to disclose revenue specifics, it's clear that the games are not listed in exact sales order within their respective categories.

In the upper echelon of Steam’s Platinum tier, players were particularly enthusiastic about games like Sons of the Forest, Starfield, and Baldur's Gate 3. Frequent chart-toppers like Apex Legends, Lost Ark, and Hogwarts Legacy maintained their popularity alongside the evergreen titles Destiny 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Dota 2, and PUBG: Battlegrounds. The Call of Duty franchise secured its spot with entries including Modern Warfare 2, 3, and Warzone, while Counter-Strike 2 continued to engage its robust player base.

Moving to the Gold tier, longstanding favorites such as War Thunder, Grand Theft Auto 5, and Red Dead Redemption 2 kept a strong presence. Newer additions like FC 24, Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, and the remade Resident Evil 4 showed their mettle too. Esports staples like Fifa 23 and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege performed well, and fantasy epic Elden Ring continued to enchant players worldwide.

The Silver tier highlighted a varied mix, with Sea of Thieves and Stellaris appealing to strategy and adventure fans, respectively, while community favorites like Dead Space, Total War: Warhammer 3, and Street Fighter 6 proved their worth.