Market (Overall)ยทUpdated Mar 17, 2026 by Video Game Insights
Cooperative games significantly outperform the market, accounting for 36% of all units sold on Steam in 2023 despite representing only 6% of total releases.
The average co-op game on Steam sells 40,000 units, which is eight times the 5,000-unit average achieved by non-cooperative titles.
Market success is highly concentrated, with Palworld alone accounting for nearly half of the 40 million co-op units sold during the first half of 2024.
Cooperative mechanics provide a higher commercial floor, as even the bottom quartile of co-op games performs twice as well as their single-player counterparts.
Large-scale commercial viability is proven by the fact that over 100 co-op titles have surpassed five million lifetime unit sales.
Co-op games reduce reliance on traditional advertising by leveraging organic word-of-mouth promotion and highly shareable, streamable content that drives natural hype cycles.
Cooperative games significantly outperform the market, accounting for 36% of all units sold on Steam in 2023 despite representing only 6% of total releases.
The average co-op game on Steam sells 40,000 units, which is eight times the 5,000-unit average achieved by non-cooperative titles.
Market success is highly concentrated, with Palworld alone accounting for nearly half of the 40 million co-op units sold during the first half of 2024.
Cooperative mechanics provide a higher commercial floor, as even the bottom quartile of co-op games performs twice as well as their single-player counterparts.
Large-scale commercial viability is proven by the fact that over 100 co-op titles have surpassed five million lifetime unit sales.
Co-op games reduce reliance on traditional advertising by leveraging organic word-of-mouth promotion and highly shareable, streamable content that drives natural hype cycles.