Ars Technica has done some really nice work around Steam and what players are buying and playing on that service. If the stat that Steam makes up 75% of PC sales today is even remotely true, it only makes this reporting all that more interesting.
It’s worth a read for sure, and hopefully they drill down into MMO-specific data so we have something more meaty to chew on. That DoTA is really popular is nice, but yea, not that interesting as a discussion topic. Good start though, and something I’ll be keeping an eye on for sure.
Hardcore Casual 
They did a followup of the top 100 games, which is interesting.
Unfortunately for MMO data, most of the big ones aren’t available via Steam, so no population comparisons or anything like that. Bummer!
I’m not surprised, as steam amounts to something like 90% of my own purchases over the last few years. I think I’m fairly typical. These days I might even pass over a game if it’s not available on steam, as non-steam is inconvenient and in particular I don’t trust “steam clones” very much. For example I got AC2 with a laptop a few years back, but I had to use ubisoft’s steamclone to play. I’d like to play it again, but installing the ubisoft stuff, recovering passwords, etc is too much of a hurdle to bother. What about your own experience, Syncaine?
Rare is the purchase I make not on Steam. ESO was the latest, before that… I honestly can’t remember. Stuff off GoG? So yea, if you are not on Steam, you better be massively compelling to me. Anything beyond that I pass on.
On the other hand, I’ve bought a ton of games I’d normally pass on just because they are on Steam and I know I can go from purchase to playing in under an hour (most of the time), and Steam just makes all the community, patching, etc so easy.
I do hate studios like Ubi for putting their crap under Steam, but they own the Might and Magic IP and I love that, so they still get my money for something like Might and Magic: Legacy.
Agreed, a couple of the more mainstream EA offerings that are offered only in the origin store that I might be inclined to buy from time to time are absolutely outside of my wheelhouse due to them not also being on Steam.
Did you say Origin? Why must you use such foul language?