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Steam’s 2025 Revenue Leaders: Multiplayer Games Dominate the Charts
On December 29, Steam gave users a look at which games that were launched this year made the most revenue on the platform. The results reveal a clear trend: online multiplayer games, including ARC Raiders, Battlefield 6, Schedule I, Dune: Awakening, and Elden Ring: Nightreign, dominated Steam’s Top 12 games of 2025 by revenue.
This multiplayer dominance signals a major shift in PC gaming preferences. In the “Platinum” tier, or the Top 12 overall, nine games are multi-player experiences. Of the year’s biggest earners, only three games are purely single-player between Hollow Knight Silksong, Oblivion Remastered, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2—impressive considering these titles compete without endless microtransactions or battle passes.
Indie games proved they could challenge AAA titans. Two indies, Hollow Knight Silksong and Schedule 1, managed to out earn dozens of AAA games this year without a publisher, a budget of millions, or a full-cost price tag. Both hits usually cost $20, meaning they had to sell many millions of more copies to make the same amount as their $70-60 peers.
The tiers that Steam used are Platinum (1st through 12th), Gold (13th through 24th), Silver (25th through 50th), and Bronze (51st to 100th). The games listed on Steam’s full roster were sorted randomly in each tier. Steam stated that its top 100 bestsellers list of 2025 will be updated on January 15, just days after the Winter Sale concludes.
What’s your take: Does multiplayer’s revenue dominance reflect genuine player preference, or are monetization strategies tilting the scales?
