Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, seemingly small indie games that have a focus on community engagement and social interaction have exploded in popularity. The latest example of this trend is the ghost-hunting simulator Phasmophobia, which dominated sales charts throughout October and has continued its reign over Steam‘s online storefront, according to a recent report.
Phasmophobia has now been number one on Steam’s Top Sellers list, based on the revenue it has generated, for three weeks in a row including the week ending today, November 1. This statistic comes from industry analyst Daniel Ahmad, who posted the top-ten list to Twitter earlier. The list shows Kinetic Games’ Phasmophobia and InnerSloth’s social deduction game Among Us beating out AAA blockbusters including pre-orders for CD Projekt Red’s delayed Cyberpunk 2077 and Obsidian Entertainment’s The Outer Worlds.
Ahmad further points out that Supergiant Games’ roguelike Hades has jumped from ninth to sixth place since last week, while Tuxedo Labs’ Teardown and One More Level’s Ghostrunner debuted in the top ten. While these are not social experiences in the same way as Among Us or Fall Guys – which is noticeable absent after being a “mainstay in the chart for a while,” they do show a trend toward titles by comparatively smaller developers.
That being said, a lot of this could have to do with the relative drought of AAA experiences leading up to the release of Sony and Microsoft’s next-generation consoles later this month. Disregarding console exclusives, games like Bungie’s Destiny 2 will cross over with PC, and could skew Steam sales significantly for November considering pre-orders on the Destiny 2: Beyond Light expansion hit number 9 on Ahmad’s list.
Other games may also break ground on Steam’s sales chart this month. For example, Respawn Entertainment’s popular battle royale Apex Legends will release on Steam November 4, though it has already been available on PC through the Origin storefront. It’s hard to say whether a title such as this could stop the juggernauts that are Phasmophobia and Among Us, but time will tell.
No matter how Steam numbers shake out in November, the mark that has been left by games like Among Us and Fall Guys is hard to ignore, and will likely influence game developers going forward. Phasmophobia also has new updates coming out that should keep the experience fresh for average players and streamers, so it seems fair to assume that Steam will continue to see the fruits of its offerings.
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