Tony Wang5 min readFree-to-Play Is Retreating on Steam — and Winning Anyway
Free-to-play is ~7% of Steam's 2024 releases and ~20% of the catalog — yet 35% of US top sellers and the #1 game by live players are free. The paradox, in data.
Our State of Steam 2026 study found free-to-play retreating — a shrinking share of new releases as the paid-game model reasserts itself. That's true, and it's only half the story. Rank Steam by what people are playing and buying right now, and free-to-play isn't retreating at all. It's winning. Here's the paradox, with receipts from two datasets.
Half the story: studios are backing away from free
Free-to-play is not how most of Steam's most-owned catalog is built. Of the top 10,000 games by owners, roughly one in five (2,019 titles) is free-to-play — the other four in five carry a price. And the trend among new releases points down, not up: F2P's share of new releases climbed through the 2010s to a ~31% peak in 2019–2020, then fell every year to about 7% in 2024.
The reason is unglamorous: free-to-play is brutal economics. A paid game earns something from everyone who buys it; a free game earns nothing unless it reaches the scale where a small percentage of spenders funds the whole thing. Most never get there. So the rational studio bet, at launch, has swung back toward charging money up front.
The other half: free is what people actually play
Now rank Steam not by its catalog but by its concurrent players right now, and the picture inverts. In the latest snapshot, the single most-played game on Steam — Counter-Strike 2, with 1.29 million players in-game — is free. So are Dota 2, PUBG and Apex Legends, all sitting near the very top of the same live chart. The games with the biggest audiences on Steam are disproportionately the free ones.
It carries straight into revenue. On Steam's US top-sellers chart — ranked by money, not downloads — 7 of the top 20 games are free-to-play:
A game that costs nothing can top a revenue chart because the price tag was never where the money was. Counter-Strike 2, Marvel Rivals, Apex Legends, Warframe, Destiny 2, Overwatch and Wuthering Waves all charge $0 at the door and earn through cosmetics, battle passes and in-game currency — and Steam ranks them right alongside $60 releases.
The paradox, resolved
Both facts are true at once because free-to-play is a winner-take-all model. The median new F2P game fails hard — which is exactly why studios are shipping fewer of them, and why the catalog trend points down. But the handful that win don't just succeed; they become permanent live-service fixtures. A hit like Counter-Strike or Dota doesn't sell a burst of copies and fade — it accumulates a concurrent player base measured in hundreds of thousands and stays at the top of the players and sellers charts for years.
So the honest read isn't "free-to-play is dying" or "free-to-play is thriving." It's this: free-to-play is a shrinking bet with a widening payoff. Fewer studios take it, but the ones who win take everything — the players, the concurrency, and a permanent seat on the sales chart.
That's the kind of thing you only see by holding two datasets side by side: the catalog tells you what's made, the charts tell you what's played. Track the live version on the Steam charts tracker, or query either dataset through one REST API.
Frequently asked questions
Is free-to-play growing or shrinking on Steam?
Both, depending on what you measure. Among new releases it's shrinking — free-to-play's share fell from a ~31% peak in 2019–2020 to about 7% in 2024. But among the games people actually play and buy it's dominant: the #1 game by live concurrent players (Counter-Strike 2) is free, and 7 of the 20 US top sellers are free-to-play. Studios ship fewer F2P games, but the winners dominate the charts.
What share of Steam's top sellers are free-to-play?
In the latest snapshot, 7 of the 20 games on Steam's US top-sellers chart (35%) are free-to-play — Counter-Strike 2, Marvel Rivals, Apex Legends, Warframe, Destiny 2, Overwatch and Wuthering Waves. They rank on a revenue chart despite a $0 price because they monetize in-game through cosmetics, battle passes and currency.
What is the most-played free game on Steam?
Counter-Strike 2, which is #1 on Steam by live concurrent players (about 1.29 million in-game in the latest snapshot) and free-to-play. Dota 2, PUBG and Apex Legends — also free — sit near the top of the same live-players chart.
How much of Steam's catalog is free-to-play?
About one in five of the most-owned games: 2,019 of the top 10,000 Steam games by owner estimate are free-to-play. The share of new releases that are free peaked near 31% in 2019–2020 and has fallen to roughly 7% by 2024.
Why do studios make fewer free-to-play games if they dominate the charts?
Because free-to-play is winner-take-all. A paid game earns something from every buyer; a free game earns nothing unless it reaches the scale where a small fraction of spenders funds everything, and most never get there. So studios increasingly charge up front — but the rare free-to-play hits become permanent live-service fixtures that never leave the top of the players and sellers charts.