Steam Charts
It was only last week that the action adventure Days Gone was able to climb to the top of the Steam sales charts. However, it doesn't stay there too long, because meanwhile there is another change to be announced. From now on, the recently published open-world game Biomutant is on the throne. Due to the separate presentation of the pre-order version, it is even represented twice in the top 10. Days Gone, on the other hand, has lost a bit of ground and is currently "only" in fifth place. Third place went to the pirate MMO Sea of Thieves, which is benefiting from a current discount campaign.What about the ranks behind the top 3? The recently still so popular Subnautica: Below Zero had to say goodbye to the top 10 as well as the survival horror game Resident Evil Village. In return, such long-running favorites as GTA 5 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt celebrated their comeback. The latter also benefited from a current discount campaign.
Incidentally, the level of sales achieved is decisive for the placement of the individual games in the Steam sales charts. The charts are issued weekly in an XML feed on Steam. The following charts relate to the period from May 24th to May 30th, 2021 Here is an overview:
Biomutant pre-order edition Biomutant Sea of Thieves 50% cheaper Mass Effect: Legendary Edition Days Gone Valve Index VR Kit Grand Theft Auto 5 Save 80% on ARK: Survival Evolved5 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Game of the Year Edition 80% cheaper Rust 33% cheaper Source: Steam
PlayStation tops the Steam charts
Sony PlayStation's 'Days Gone' is currently the top-selling game on PC gaming marketplace Steam, just a day after a release that was unthinkable not long ago.
Why it matters: For the last several years, once unbreakable rules about where games appear have snapped, as games from two of the big three console makers now frequently make it to PC and even mobile.
Stay on top of the latest market trends and economic insights with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free
Between the lines: 'Days Gone' was made by one of Sony's internal development studios and was released for PlayStation 4 in 2019 to mediocre reviews, though it developed a loyal following.
The action-adventure is set in a vast swath of Oregon wilderness in which a player rides a motorcycle and fights for survival after a global pandemic (too real, Sony).
Under gaming's old rules, 'Days Gone' would have been consigned to success or failure on Sony's consoles.
But Sony announced plans last year to bring some top PS4 games to PC, beginning with 2017's woman-vs.-robot-dinosaurs adventure 'Horizon Zero Dawn,' which became an immediate PC hit.
The big picture: Console makers that used to rely on marquee exclusive games to sell loss-leading hardware now also see a benefit to getting their expensive productions in front of an even bigger audience.
Millions of people may own a PlayStation or Xbox, but there's another market of the millions more who don’t and have been happy to play games on PC.
The potential audience on mobile is even larger, though big console games can't run on phones unless they're streamed from a remote server that runs the game.
These changes were triggered by Microsoft, which began offering Xbox games for PC and console as a package deal in 2016, eroding the need to buy its console to play its games.
While Sony is only bringing back catalogue PlayStation games to PC, Microsoft has now spent years selling its new Xbox games to PC players on the same release date.
Microsoft is even pushing its games to phones, as it expands a recently launched cloud gaming program that streams some of its biggest games to mobile devices.
What's next: While Microsoft has made its Xbox consoles an optional purpose to play its games, a PlayStation remains mandatory to play Sony’s highly-regarded exclusives when they launch.
Story continues
Go deeper: Trial documents reveal Sony's PlayStation's price for playing together
More from Axios: Sign up to get the latest market trends with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free