Elden Ring - #6 on the most played Games List

Elden Ring is already on place #6 on the most played games list according to SteamDB:

Most played Games (ranked by All-Time-Peak)

1. PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS
2. Lost Ark
3. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
4. Dota 2
5. Cyberpunk 2077
6. ELDEN RING
7. New World
8. Valheim
9. Terraria
10. Capcom Arcade Stadium
11. Fallout 4
12. Life is Strange 2
13. Among Us
14. POSTAL
15. Apex Legends
16. World of Warships
17. Grand Theft Auto V
18. HITMAN 2
19. Kathy Rain
20. Monster Hunter: World

More information.

I was surprised two games on that list are two favorites. Normally most of my favorite games don't show up on these lists. Had to google the first one. So two MMO's at the top.

Anyhow interesting list, thanks.

I'm also surprised at some of the games on that list. Valheim at #8? I didn't realize it was that popular. Postal at #14?

I'll definitely play more of Elden Ring at some point, but not until the PC version gets another patch.

I'm surprised that Skyrim is not among the Top 20.

I don't think SteamDB is a realiable source of information anymore. Valve made a change to their API's nearly 2 years ago and at that time they said that those numbers could no longer be relied on. There are also some pretty anomalous entries on that list. Even accounting for the fact that some of them were given away for free, there is no way they had a peak of over 400k users for POSTAL for a couple of hours and then back down to less than a hundred. The API's just aren't accurate anymore. Now having said that, it's probably still indicative/somewhat accurate for some of the big titles like Elden ring etc.

Good for Kathy Rain! It's odd to see it there, being a good adventure but one of many of similar quality.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
Good for Kathy Rain! It's odd to see it there, being a good adventure but one of many of similar quality.

I did a bit of research since my last post and it seems that what happens is that whenever games get released for free and they have cards is a whole bunch of bot accounts farm the cards without even running the game (it's just an API call to steam to tell them the game is running). So in the first 2-3 hours after it goes free it gets a whole lot of fake traffic and then as soon as the cards are farmed it drops off completely. There will obviousily be some legit traffic as well but a big chunk of real players just add the game to their account and play it sometime in the future or test it out quickly.

Games don't go from 400k online peak players to 30 in a single day. If it was legit you might expect it to go from 400k -> 40k -> 4k -> 400 over a week/days.

There are steam accounts that have hundreds of thousands of dollars woth of digital goods. In reality they have hundreds (or thousands) of bots accounts farming/trading/selling stuff for cents. They even run software that makes profitable card trades on a massive scale.

Whatever. Quickly getting sick of hearing about Elden Ring lately -- EldenRing overload.

I'm not talking about rpgwatch, just that even in my youtube pc games channel subscriptions, Elden Ring is all they are talking about. Just irritates me. *rant*

I had to scroll down to sixty-one before I found an entry that I'd even played.

Originally Posted by bjon045
I don't think SteamDB is a realiable source of information anymore.

Regarding the data we are talking about here, they are absolutely reliable. They (and SteamSpy) are no longer reliable as far as "game owners" are concerned but the concurrent users (CCU) per game count is something that is displayed on Steam for the public to see all of the time. You can see it for yourself right here 24/7/365(366).

This is as public as it gets and all that SteamDB is doing is it is monitoring that data and keeping a track record of the historical CCU data.


P.S.: Since someone was surprised that Skyrim is not on the list, well, it had "only" a peak count of 287,411 CCUs 11 years ago, while Monster Hunter World (no. 20) had 334,684 CCUs about 4 years ago.
I'm sure that Skyrim was easily in the top 20 until a few years ago but it's been a full decade, the video gaming industry has grown and CoVid has catapulted some games to the top of the charts. At least Skyrim is probably one of the oldest games that still gets pretty good rankings in the Steam top 100 of CCUs. It is an oldie but goldie evergreen game .

Ok, so I've been playing over a week now when I can, and here's a wild take to spark some discussion (especially given the odd simultaneous release of Elex II): If Elden Ring was the first souls-like game ever published, with none of the history and reputation of frustration and repetitiveness that those games have, I submit that we would all be praising this game as building upon the foundations that Gothic 1 & 2 built, and taking it to a whole 'nother level.

My experience exploring the world is giving me massive flashbacks to the open world of Gothic 2. From the complete lack of hand-holding, to the way we need to find the difficulty boundaries on our own, to the way we get our ass kicked early on if we fight something we shouldn't, and later kick it's ass when we're geared and levelled up (Remember what happens if you stray off the road into the forest when heading to the first town in Gothic 2? I sure do).

Past FromSoftware games were mostly on rails, and if you were going up against a tough boss, you had little choice but to keep trying til you beat it so you can continue progressing. Not so with this game. I've made a conscious decision to walk away from a boss or area if I die more than a couple times, and the game is totally playable that way, with huge multiple areas in the beginning section of the game where you can be successful and get geared up and help you come back to overcome the hard challenges (I recently killed one of the major world bosses 40 levels after I first ran away from it like a scared schoolgirl). Just last night I spent a good 6 hours uncovering 2 large portions of my map, and exploring 3 catacombs/caves and taking out the mini-bosses and getting some useful loot, and the whole time I died just a couple times and was never at risk of losing my runes. And this was in an area completely off the rails from the main story path. The world is freakin' huge….

Elden Ring is the incarnation of what the Soulslike genre should have looked like from the start. Opening up the world and giving us other options besides banging our head against the wall has improved the enjoyment and fun factor 100x for me. Brilliant game, absolutely brilliant….

Originally Posted by Moriendor
This is as public as it gets and all that SteamDB is doing is it is monitoring that data and keeping a track record of the historical CCU data.

Thanks. Point noted. I have since also found some information on why certain games appear on the list that you wouldn't think would be on there. As my post above says it is free games with things that can be sold i.e. cards.

I think when I first looked at the list those entries made me think the list was dodgy but it turns out it is correct as you said - just some dodgy stuff is happening to get these games into the list.

What I got confused about was the change that removed a whole chunk of the data that used to be available that broke SteamSpy i.e. https://galyonk.in/whats-going-on-wi…y-deed5d699233

Originally Posted by Fantasm
Past FromSoftware games were mostly on rails

If you're only going back to the start of the Souls series perhaps, and even then "on rails" is an exaggeration.

A lot of gamers only know FromSoftware from the Souls games, but they've been around much longer than that. Elden Ring isn't their first open-world RPG.

Originally Posted by Fantasm
Elden Ring is the incarnation of what the Soulslike genre should have looked like from the start. Opening up the world and giving us other options besides banging our head against the wall has improved the enjoyment and fun factor 100x for me. Brilliant game, absolutely brilliant….

Makes me want to play it. You are have articulated very well what I hated most about Dark Souls when I played it so many years ago. It is great that Elden Ring appears to take full advantage of the flexibility that going open world has to offer and that it mitigates many of the Dark Souls negatives. If you are a fan of Gothic 2 that is also a big plus in my book as it is one of my favourite games of all time.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
I had to scroll down to sixty-one before I found an entry that I'd even played.

yeah i wouldn't touch most things on this list with a stick let alone with a keyboard.

Fallout 4 is the only thing i played…and even that was short lived, and did a refund on Cybershit 2077

Originally Posted by Dolby
yeah i wouldn't touch most things on this list with a stick let alone with a keyboard.

Fallout 4 is the only thing i played…and even that was short lived, and did a refund on Cybershit 2077

That also means that nobody cares to touch whatever shit you play with a stick, let alone a keyboard; but at least you got that special snowflake feeling going for you with this highly topic-contributing insightful comment.

Why is POSTAL on this list? That sounds… strange.

Originally Posted by Nereida
That also means that nobody cares to touch whatever shit you play with a stick, let alone a keyboard; but at least you got that special snowflake feeling going for you with this highly topic-contributing insightful comment.

Yeah, at least as contributing and insightful as almost all of your comments lately.

I've played 14 of the 20. There's some good ones in there. What did I tell you all about Lost Ark, ay? I knew that would be huge.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I'm also surprised at some of the games on that list. Valheim at #8? I didn't realize it was that popular. Postal at #14?

I'll definitely play more of Elden Ring at some point, but not until the PC version gets another patch.

Yeah, Valheim just seems to be a case of being in the right place at the right time…. With the right price. I don't think there's actually anything new going on there.

I'm actually quite interested to hear some of your impressions on Elden Ring. You're the only person I know who has played Kings Field. They're probably not really comparable but I got the impression you kinda liked From Software at that point in time but Souls series lost you a bit. Now I'd expect ER to win you back. But the butthurt from Souls can be pretty hard to get past. I have a friend who plays Bethesda games and New Vegas on repeat but won't touch it.

Originally Posted by Arkadia7
Whatever. Quickly getting sick of hearing about Elden Ring lately -- EldenRing overload.

I'm not talking about rpgwatch, just that even in my youtube pc games channel subscriptions, Elden Ring is all they are talking about. Just irritates me. *rant*

I guess that'll happen when you visit Elden Ring threads to post comments.

Originally Posted by Fantasm
Brilliant game, absolutely brilliant….

I enjoyed reading your impressions. The game is in a league of its own.

Originally Posted by bjon045
Makes me want to play it.

Yeah, give it a look. Anyone who likes open-world, single character action RPGs is sure to find something there they like.

Originally Posted by Nereida
That also means that nobody cares to touch whatever shit you play with a stick, let alone a keyboard; but at least you got that special snowflake feeling going for you with this highly topic-contributing insightful comment.

Whats the point, you know? Why do we even bother posting anything, these days. As if anyone is actually worthy of my insight. As if I care about these comments that amount to about as much as like/dislike. The internet sucks! It's not like it used to be!!

Originally Posted by Andrew23
Yeah, at least as contributing and insightful as almost all of your comments lately.

And your comment too. Cmon, everyone, let's get a chain going of saying how pointless the last comment was!

I'm jealous. I have no twitch skills and cannot play this game or any DS clone, really. I may watch a thorough let's play at some point, just to see what I missed. If I can find a voice I can tolerate. I hate cursing, accents, high pitched male voices and several other irritants when it comes to video. Wonder if Morgan Freeman plays it or James Earl Jones I don't know if JEJ is still kicking.

Skyrim does hit the top 20 still, just not all the time anymore. It seems to be real popular around the major holidays and then fades again. Still amazes me since it's over a decade old now. Fallout 4 does okay still and it's pretty long in the tooth too.