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Profiling Steam users A valuable gamer niche

Karol Severin
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20,000 foot view:  For two decades now, Steam has been one of the go-to digital game distributors, particularly for computer gamers and developers. Yet, its weekly active audience does not quite reflect a fully representative sample of computer gamers. Rather, Steam’s weekly active users (WAUs) are a specific niche of gamers, characterised by their demographics, genre preferences and wider gamer behaviours. This carries implications both for developers, who stake much of their sales strategy on Steam, as well as for the digital distributor itself.

Key insights 

  • Only            of            use Steam every week, with            largest adoption occurring among PC                      
  • Steam’s weekly            users skew younger and more            than the computer gamer average
  • Watching games-related            is one of the most            behaviours of Steam users, compared            the computer gamer average
  • This poses            opportunity for Steam to significantly            its video strategy and points            the need for developers to            thoroughly planned video tactics
  • Steam users            more likely to play multiplayer            than the computer gamer average                      
  • Steam users            also more likely to purchase            items every month than the            average            versus           
  • Fandom of            shooter (FPS), role playing games            open world and survival games            over-indexes the most among Steam            while strategy, sports and multiplayer            battle arena (MOBA) under-index the           
  • Steam users            nearly twice as likely to            Discord than the computer gamer           
    •            of Steam users use YouTube weekly
  • Steam presents            valuable niche for a specific            of games
  • Developers should,            be wary not to over-rely            games sales on the platform            avoid risk of limiting their            audience 

Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Amazon, BeReal, Counter Strike, Discord, Epic Games, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, GoG Ltd, Green Man Gaming, Netflix, Pinterest, Plarium Play, PlayStation Now, Snapchat, Steam, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, Valve, Xbox Game Pass, YouTube, Whatsapp