Steam's most popular games might not seem to change much, with Valve's own classics often holding the top two or even three spots, but that'snot always been the case over the past few years. A number of games have seen their popularity spike and fall as new trends come along. While a few holdouts might remain near the top of the pile, the numbers have certainly changed a lot and there are a few titles which once ruled the roost that no longer even break the top 10.
To put that into perspective, one Steam gamer has compiled the stats on the top 15 Steam games from the past four years, showing player numbers and rankings throughout the list.
This animated graph was collated by Redditor, TheKarmaFiend. It shows DotA 2 and CS:GO as long standing members of the top-3 club, with Team Fortress 2 and GTA V not far behind most of the time. It's intriguing to see games like Civilization VI makes a big appearance and then fall off, and then PUBG takes its place as the most played game on the platform.
Other notable long-time top-10 games include Rocket League, ARK, and Skyrim, though the popularity of titles like Rust, Paladinss, and Football Manager 16 certainly didn't last.
It's also interesting to see the overall player numbers increase over the years. What was circling around the eight million mark at the start of the Gif turns into more than 15 million by the end.