Proving once again that, despite the growing number of games released each year, most gamers still prefer older titles, a new report reveals that PC gamers spend considerably more time on games older than two years, dedicating a measly 8% of their gaming time to newly-released titles.
Valve
The data comes from the Director of Consulting at Newzoo Ben Porter’s upcoming Game Developers Conference presentation, seen ahead of time by PC Gamer. According to Newzoo’s research – based on a survey of 73,000 players and data from over 10,000 games – in 2024, 67% of player hours on PC were spent on games six years old or older, 25% on games between two and five years old, and the remaining 8% on titles less than two years old.
The top five of the biggest 67% group is dominated by multiplayer, live service titles, with PC gamers spending 7.1% on Counter-Strike 2 (also listed as an old game by virtue of being a remaster of CS:GO), 6.4% on League of Legends, 6.2% on Roblox, 5.8% on Dota 2, and 5.4% on Fortnite.
What’s more, the presentation reveals that the total number of PC gamers has grown to 907.5 million in 2024, which, if accurate, would mean the PC audience now outnumbers the population of console gamers by more than 250 million, with its estimated 653.1 million total players last year.
Interestingly, the report seems to align with Steam’s annual review, which revealed that players spent just 15% of their total playtime on brand-new games released in 2024, while 47% of their time was spent on games launched in the past one to seven years, and the remaining 37% on games released eight years ago or earlier.
It also appears to correlate with the overall decline in the quality of AAA games in 2024 – a year when big-name studios “delighted” their audiences with titles like Skull and Bones, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Star Wars Outlaws, XDefiant, Starfield: Shattered Space, Life is Strange: Double Exposure, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and Concord – which led to a subsequent lack of interest from gamers in those titles.
So, what are your thoughts on Newzoo’s latest findings? What games do you spend most of your time on? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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