ReportVideo Game Insights
State of Free to Play on Steam in 2024
1 Jan 202416 pages~11 min full read
Free-to-play (FtP) games dominate Steam engagement, accounting for 51% of total hours played in 2023 despite being outnumbered by premium releases.
Market engagement is highly concentrated, with the top 25 FtP titles capturing 88% of all FtP activity and the top five titles holding nearly 60% of concurrent users.
The FtP sector is stagnant for new entrants, as the top ten FtP games have a mean age of seven years and only two new titles have broken into that tier since 2021.
FtP titles maintain a massive presence in the top-tier charts, occupying eight of the ten highest concurrent-user spots in 2023, with Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 leading the segment.
Premium titles are successfully eroding FtP market share, with games priced between $10 and $50 increasing their share of total playtime from 31% to 37% between 2021 and 2024.
High-budget premium releases priced over $50, such as Elden Ring and Hogwarts Legacy, are contributing to the compression of the FtP segment's dominance on the platform.
The analysis evaluates the free‑to‑play (FtP) segment on Steam, highlighting its dominant share of player engagement and the increasing difficulty for new titles to break through. In 2023, FtP games accounted for 51 % of total hours played on the platform, despite premium titles comprising the majority of releases. Engagement is highly concentrated: the top 25 FtP titles generate 88 % of all FtP activity, the top 10 capture roughly 70 %, and the top five hold nearly 60 % of concurrent users (CCU). Counter‑Strike 2 and Dota 2 continue to lead the charts, with eight of the ten highest‑CCU games in 2023 being FtP, while only one premium title (Rust) appears in the list.
The market shows signs of compression as high‑quality premium and paid‑live‑service games erode FtP share. Between 2021 and 2024, premium titles priced $10‑$50 grew from 31 % to 37 % of total playtime, and flagship releases such as Elden Ring and Hogwarts have boosted the over‑$50 segment. Nonetheless, FtP titles remain older on average; the top ten FtP games have a mean age of seven years, and only two new entries (Call of Duty Warzone and Naraka: Bladepoint) have entered the top‑ten
