The End of the Steam Winter Sale with 2021 Stats and Awards

The Annual Steam Winter Sale wrapped up about fifteen minutes ago, if this post went live when I scheduled it.  I sometimes mess that up, so one can never be too sure.

The Tradition Continues

As with last year, I ended no new games.  I bought a few things during the summer sale, but when it came to winter I wasn’t able to warm up to anything sufficiently.  I did buy some of the DLC for Stellaris that was discounted, so I didn’t walk away completely empty handed.  But, in the end my current policy of “don’t buy it now if you’re not going to play it now” won out.

So not much of a story to tell there.

But Valve has some stuff for me to talk about.  They did their usual “Best Of” post for 2021 that detailed what did well on the platform over the past year. (The blog has links back to past years if you are interested.)

On top of the revenue chart were the following 12 games, sorted alphabetically because they don’t give you actual numbers by which to sort them:

• Apex Legends
• Battlefield 2042
• CS:GO
• Dead by Daylight 5
• Destiny 2
• Dota 2
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Naraka: Bladepoint
• New World
• PUBG Battlegrounds
• Rainbow Siege 6
• Valheim

Some of the old familiar Valve titles made it, including Dota 2 and CS:GO, along with the aging champion Grand Theft Auto V, which will seemingly never die.  But it was nice to see 2021’s surprise hit, Valheim, make the cut, as did New World.  Two titles I actually played!

Perennial Platinum finisher Warframe remained in the Gold category for 2021, which still shows it to be a strong game.  Also in Gold were both Forza Horizon 4 and Forza Horizon 5.

When it came to the Most Played category, nine titles managed to exceed the 200K concurrent player count to make it into the Platinum rank for 2021.  They were:

• Apex Legends
• CS:GO
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Dota 2
• Grand Theft Auto
• Halo Infinite
• New World
• PUBG Battlegrounds
• Valheim

Again, it probably helps to be a Steam exclusive, but that category is pretty wide, with some of the titles closing in on a million concurrent at times.

And then there were the Steam Awards for 2021, the categories and winners of which were:

• Game Of The Year: Resident Evil Village
• VR Game Of The Year: Cooking Simulator VR
• Labor Of Love: Terraria
• Better With Friends: It Takes Two
• Outstanding Visual Style: Forza Horizon 5
• Most Innovative Gameplay: Deathloop
• Best Game You Suck At: Nioh 2 – The Complete Edition
• Best Soundtrack: Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy
• Outstanding Story-Rich Game: Cyberpunk 2077
• Sit Back And Relax: Farming Simulator 22

I voted in the award, though given what I play, it was generally a matter of guessing who would win rather than voting for anything I played.  Valheim was a nominee in a category or two, but did not make the cut.  So the only winner that I played was Forza Horizon 5, which I did indeed vote for.

But I also voted for Cooking Simulator VR and that was just me picking the silliest title on the list of VR options.

Anyway, the sale has come and gone, the records have been declared, and the award have been given out.  Back to whatever passes for normal, at least until we get to the summer sale.