The Top Five 🥇
Welcome to free-to-play week. There’s not much going on up here, so I figured it’s a good time to take a look at Dota 2.
Maybe it’s just because I was in the esports scene back in the early 2010s, but I vividly remember just how loud The International was and how big Valve’s International Compendiums were back in 2014 and 2015. (Before every game started using them). But how has the game fared since then? It still sits as one of the most played games on Steam each and every week, but context is everything so let’s get into the numbers.
For the list below, the first number is average number of players per day across the entire year. The second is the average peak daily player count.
2013 - 250k / 441k
2014 - 474k / 818k
2015 - 561k / 984k
2016 - 638k / 1.14m
2017 - 533k / 909k
2018 - 545k / 782k
2019 - 477k / 850k
2020 - 433k / 711k
2021 - 422k / 703k
2022 - 460k / 741k
Setting aside the fact that 450,000 daily Steam players is a height most games only wish they could achieve, there has certainly been some drop off from the heyday of Dota 2. In fact, prior to this year, only one (2018) has been an increase over the last, though it appears that 2022 will manage to buck the trend.
As expected, revenue information isn’t easy to come by. A report on VentureBeat back in 2015 said Valve was earning about $18M per month. Thankfully, we can at least compare trends based on The International’s prize pool which is primarily driven by player purchases of each year’s battle pass.
Per this year’s website, 25% of all Compendium/Battle Pass purchases goes towards the prize pool.
25% of every purchase prior to the conclusion of The International 2022 goes towards The International 2022 prize pool.
2013 - $2,874,000
2014 - $10,923,000
2015 - $18,429,000
2016 - $20,770,000
2017 - $24,787,000
2018 - $25,532,000
2019 - $34,330,000
2020/2021 - $40,018,000 (Combined due to Covid)
2022 - Currently at $16,766,000
The last two to three years has been distorted thanks to Covid, but as a whole, Dota keeps earning more and more money off of International battle passes. Though this year might be the time it finally shows signs of slowing down.
According to Dota 2 Prize Pool Tracker, this year’s prize pool is currently $11M behind the 2021 pool and $2.6M behind the 2019 pool after 46 days of availability. It’s barely ahead of the ‘17 and ‘18 totals as well.
With Battle Pass: Part II launching on November 3, we’ll soon have a better idea as to where this one will end up. It’s weird to say that it’s a good time to pay attention to one of the most popular games day after day, but there’s a real chance players may at least be tiring of the game’s monitization methods.
Five New Games 🆕
Scorn (#13)
I hate the look of this game y’all. I refuse to play it. If for some reason you don’t have Xbox or PC Game Pass and would rather spend $36 ($40 after October 21), you can pick it up on Steam.
Keep in mind it’s a first-person horror adventure game and not a shooter which apparently took a lot of folks by surprise.
Coral Island (#18)
I mentioned this in last week’s newsletter, so here’s a list of features that have been implemented thus far: farming, ranching, crafting, relationships, fishing, bug catching, mining, decorating.
Dragon Ball: The Breakers (#28)
It’s Dead by Daylight meets Dragon Ball. Cell, Frieza, Majin Buu are the “killers” with Bulma, Oolong, and the generic Farmer, Earthling Male, and Earthling Female as the survivors. It’s pretty barebones at the moment, though Season 2 will come with new characters.
Stardeus (#44)
You know what? I’m going to just leave the official description here:
Inspired by Factorio and Rimworld, Stardeus is a deep colony sim set on a broken starship manned by drones and hibernating human survivors. As the immortal AI you will have your drones repair your starship, save or exploit your human crew and travel the stars in this beautifully complex simulation of a procedurally generated universe.
Stranded: Alien Dawn (#53)
It’s a heck of a week for fans of Rimworld. Stranded is a 3D-version of the game complete with troublesome weather, illness breakouts, and alien invasions. There’s also farming, lighting, heating, and a whole lot of resources. It’s also in early access so there’s a lot to come, but as a Haemimont Games (Surviving Mars, Tropico) title, it’s safe to say there’s more on the way.
The Movers 🆙
This is already a significantly longer newsletter than I intended, so going to keep these short. This is the cheapest Stray has ever been at $24 (20% off).
+55 Metro Exodus
+52 PGA Tour 2K23
+48 Stray
+41 Forza Horizon 5
The Sliders 🔽
We’ve talked about all of these games in the past, so if you don’t know what they are, check out previous issues. The only exception is PlateUp! which is like Overcooked but you also a little bit of a Roguelike and you can place stations and tables yourself.
-44 Terra Invicta
-42 GUNDAM Evolution
-42 PlateUp!
-36 BONELAB
Longest Lasting ⌛
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (532 Weeks)
Warframe (499 Weeks)
Grand Theft Auto V (405 Weeks)
The Elder Scrolls Online (404 Weeks)
Rust (382 Weeks)
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege (361 Weeks)
Final Fantasy XIV Online (307 Weeks)
Dead by Daylight (284 Weeks)
Destiny 2 (171 Weeks)
Red Dead Redemption 2 (150 Weeks)