There’s more to life than a K/D ratio. PC players aren’t as preoccupied with PvP as popularly conceived, with Steam users more likely to play noncompetitive games than console players, according to industry analysts.
In its 2025 report on games industry trends, market research company Newzoo surveyed “raw telemetry data taken from over 1 million players” to compare gameplaying trends on different platforms. Examining the games that each player in its dataset had played at least two hours of, Newzoo found that 58% of the games played by Steam users in 2024 were entirely noncompetitive PvE games, compared to 42% of games played on PlayStation and 41% of games played on Xbox.
Newzoo’s data shows that Steam user interest in PvE games has seen steady yearly increases, growing from 47% in 2021. The company attributes the “increasingly more PvE-friendly” Steam userbase to the growing popularity of “social-focused titles,” which are cooperative and focused on “jolly cooperative mayhem.” Recent breakout hits like Helldivers 2, Lethal Company, and Schedule 1 have been primarily focused on cooperative gameplay.
The differences in platform offerings are also considered a contributing factor. Steam has a lower barrier to entry for smaller developers, resulting in a wider variety of indie games available to PC players. These games are often made on tighter budgets, which can make it more challenging to accommodate the additional development and networking costs associated with competitive multiplayer.
However, there are some limitations to the data. Newzoo’s survey does not differentiate between single-player and multiplayer games, and a single-player game is classified as a PvE game. Additionally, the data does not compare playtime, so players may have played more PvE games while spending more hours overall in PvP games.
Another significant limitation is that Newzoo’s panel does not include player data from China and India, which together comprise more than a billion people playing video games. As a result, the panel may not be entirely representative of global gaming preferences.
Interestingly, Newzoo found that across all three platforms, the more games someone plays in a year, the more likely it is that the games they’re playing are PvE titles. On Steam, this effect is more pronounced, with a “notable hockey stick effect” where the likelihood of noncompetitive interest jumps dramatically as soon as a Steam player is playing more than one game a year.
This trend is attributed to the enthusiast nature of the PC gaming market. Competitive games have broad market appeal and are likely to be picked up by casual players. In contrast, PvE games are often favored by dedicated enthusiasts who are more likely to explore a wider range of games.
