Valve monitored the activity of 1.7 million Steam users and found some pretty interesting stats about playtime and in-game transactions and purchases.
In Steam's 2024 Year-in-Review writeup, Valve said it tracked the activity of 1.7 million customers who were first-time purchasers and bought one of the 20 biggest games of 2023. It used the big games to single them out, and "then we followed that cohort of new users," Valve says.
Valve collected data that showed what those customers did on Steam from January 2024 through early March 2025. As it turns out, they played a lot of games and spent a lot of money.
"The 1.7 million customers who originated from a top 2023 release went on to enjoy more than 141 million hours of playtime in additional games, on top of any playtime from the game that brought them onboard," Valve says. "And they weren’t just playing games—they were buying new ones, too. That cohort of players has gone on to spend $20 million on in-game transactions across hundreds of other games—plus another $73 million on premium games and DLC across thousands more products."
Valve says the data proves "Steam isn’t just a storefront—it provides social community, game discoverability, interactive events, and a deep set of game-enhancing features to attract and retain players who will be checking out new games in the future."
If anything, it's also interesting data that proves, despite the polarized opinions toward microtransactions, they are and will continue to be financial drivers in many big games.
