In a new list, Valve provides information about the most popular games on its mobile PC Steam Deck. Accordingly, “Baldur’s Gate 3”, “Elden Ring” and “Stardew Valley” were the most popular among Steam Deck owners last year. The list also provides information about current popularity.
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If you limit your search to the last month“Baldur’s Gate 3” slipped to 5th place – behind “Elden Ring” in first place, “Stardew Valley” in second, “Hades 2” in third, and the roguelike card game “Baltro” in fourth.
Esoteric Metrics
What has not yet been clarified is how the statistics on which the ranking is based work. In German, Valve calls the statistics “most played games”, in the English original they are “most played games”. However, Valve told The Verge that this metric does not compare hours played, but rather the number of players. Valve also takes into account how often a game is among the most played titles for individual Steam Deck users. In this way, Valve wants to get the impression of whether a game is currently trending among more and more people. “The metric is a combination of unique users and interest,” Valve told The Verge,
This unclear methodology makes it difficult to objectively evaluate the list. Valve calculates its “most played games” across platforms based only on the number of players, making comparisons even more difficult. But what does stand out is this: multiplayer titles like “Counter-Strike 2”, “Dota 2” and “PUBG” regularly top the Steam list, but are significantly less popular on Steam Deck, with only “Counter-Strike 2” making it into the top 100. On the one hand, this is probably due to the fact that the three games are designed for mouse and keyboard; in addition, Steam Deck, as a mobile console, is more suited to single-player titles.
“Paatal Lok” in the ranking twice
Some more insights from the current Steam Deck rankings (last month):
- All games in the top 10 are verified for Steam Deck. The top unverified games are “GTA 5” and “Red Dead Redemption 2,” both marked as “playable.”
- In 27th place is the PC port of “Ghost of Tsushima 2”, a game that is “not supported” on Steam Deck. It is unknown why the Sony game is shown as unsupported – apparently it can be played on Steam Deck.
- “Hades” and “Hades 2” are both in the top 10. Both games are considered suitable for the deck due to their low system requirements, gamepad controls, and repeatable gameplay.
- “Diablo 4” was brought to Steam last fall after already being available on Battle.net. Only the Steam version can be played on the deck without much effort – with an 8th place in the ranking, the Steam version was probably worth it for Valve.
- “Fallout 4” is also one of the “most played” titles on Steam Deck. This means that the role-playing game still benefits from the hype surrounding the Amazon series.
(There)
