Capcom’s ‘Exoprimal’ Sneaks Into the Top 10 PC Bestsellers Against Stiff Indie Competition | Chart

The latest Steam revenue chart is in, revealing that indie bestsellers continue to dominate on the distribution platform and that Capcom’s latest major release, “Exoprimal,” isn’t shaping up to be a rousing success story like “Street Fighter 6” was.

At No. 1 in the top 10 revenue earners of the week was “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive,” a permanent fixture of the list thanks to its vast community and incredibly lucrative microtransaction economy, which keeps it in a position to crush the competition on a weekly basis.

Coming in at No. 2 was Valve’s Steam Deck hardware. Given that Valve discloses games’ financial successes based on revenue, it shouldn’t be a surprise that a handheld gaming device with a minimum buy-in of $400 is reaping more raw revenue than games, which typically cap at $60 or $70 per copy.

No. 3 is where a non-Valve-backed product emerged, in the form of indie multiplayer military shooter “BattleBit Remastered.” The $15 game racked up almost two million sales in its first two weeks live, and it remained high on the overall revenue earners list in its fifth week on the chart. It’s nearing 56,000 total reviews on Steam, with an aggregated consumer reception of “very positive.”

No. 4 was “Baldur’s Gate 3,” a full-fledged $60 release that’s been out since 2020. This fantasy roleplaying game has reentered the top 10 revenue earners long after its initial launch because it’s leaving early access. Now it’s on the cusp of becoming a “proper” release, meaning the developers have nearly finished creating their vision. As such, all the gamers who held off on buying the in-progress title appear to be coming back, ready to spend on the final version.

Many folks hold off on buying early access titles since these sorts of games sometimes never finish development or end up reneging on their original promises, either way leaving early buyers feeling betrayed. Naturally, it all depends on the developers and publishers behind a given game, and some studios have better track records than others with seeing early access releases through to the finish line. It seems “Baldur’s Gate 3” will be remembered as one of the better examples of how a game can benefit from launching before development is concluded, building up sales momentum years ahead of release.

No. 5 on the revenue earners chart was “Team Fortress 2.” Much like “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive,” “TF2” is another Valve-made free-to-play multiplayer shooter with an extensive microtransaction economy. Its resurgence into the top 10 signals both the popularity its regularly added game updates command, as well as the fact that it was likely a slower week for Steam’s storefront revenue (in terms of major releases and blockbuster sales figures).

No. 6 was “Dave the Diver,” an indie adventure game. Much like “BattleBit Remastered,” “Dave the Diver” is an indie game that’s managed to stay high in the top 10 revenue earners every week since its launch. It costs $20 and is up to over 37,000 reviews with an overall consumer reception of “overwhelmingly positive.”

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No. 7 went to the $70 “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,” the game that made $1 billion in 10 days across all formats and, in the months since, has continued to dominate PC sales (“Modern Warfare 2” has been on Steam’s top revenue earners list for 52 weeks straight). Though one might think a game and franchise with this much popularity would benefit from cutting out the middleman (Steam) and being sold direct to consumers via Activision Blizzard’s own Battle.net service, therein lies the reality of PC gaming: No company has proven it can do better alone.

A recently disclosed document from Microsoft revealed that Activision Blizzard’s attempt to forego Steam was “a resounding failure.” Depriving Steam of “Call of Duty” did not help Battle.net grow, despite Steam growing by tens of millions of users during the experiment period. This is another data point showing why major publishers ultimately return to Steam after attempting to abandon it: Activision, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft have all danced this same dance.

Between “CS: GO,” “TF2” and the Steam Deck, three Valve-developed products lead the revenue pack on Valve’s Steam storefront. Yet despite competitors’ products lacking the home-team advantage, it remains undisputed amongst the competition that Steam is the de facto leader in PC games distribution.

Back to free-to-play titles, No. 8 on the list went to “Lost Ark” and No. 9 went to “Apex Legends,” resulting in a whopping four games in the top 10 revenue earners being free titles with internal economies.

Lastly, at No. 10, was Capcom’s new release “Exoprimal,” a science fiction game about shooting dinosaurs. As of the time of this post, it has just under 1,000 reviews, which is not a great sign for a major new release from an established publisher.

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For comparison’s sake, “Street Fighter 6” absolutely dominated the Steam chart when it released and even managed to climb higher than No. 10 during its pre-release window. That Capcom game managed to rack up over a million players in its first three days on sale across all platforms.

If we do some speculative napkin math and divide those million probable sales evenly across the five systems it released on (four consoles and PC), that means at $60 per unit, “Street Fighter 6” sold somewhere around 200,000 units on PC during the prerelease and release timeframes, when it debuted as the top paid game on Steam. If it took almost a quarter of a million units sold for “Street Fighter 6” to get high up in the top 10, then one can imagine “Exoprimal” is doing markedly worse, with its big launch debuting at No. 10, barely on the chart.

“Exoprimal” has the advantage of being part of Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service lineup, meaning its actual financial standing remains unclear — Game Pass releases aren’t tracked via Steam — but based on raw Steam revenue alone, the title doesn’t appear to be off to a great start.

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