Penance
Avatar of War Slayer
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General Gaming News and Discussion
- Thread starter Wintermute
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Too lazy to check source but a reddit post comparing it sais last year was even lower(9% iirc it said), it is a consistent statistic, a lot of people just don't play the lastest game because of money/sales, because they wait for later versions, because they just play older games or some genres that don't have many releases anyway(4x, RTS, Racing sims etc) and also a non negligible amount are just some form of bots(card farming, those weird games were you can grind NFTs, dota2/cs2 bots and so on). It isn't super surprising although it is an interesting stat imo.
The stat isn't the % of new games played which is irrelevant when 10s of thousands of AI/asset copy paste slop gets released every year on Steam, but the % of their game time spent on a new(as in released in 2025) game.
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Caeden
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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I don’t know how anyone the average age of this board could really keep up and play every “must play” that comes out even with most AAA stuff being garbage.
Plus when I was younger I would replay shit all the time. Now? Who got time for that?
Plus when I was younger I would replay shit all the time. Now? Who got time for that?
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I almost posted this same thing. But then I started thinking about shit like Eurotruck/American truck simulator as far as DLC's go and realized that there's some other games that dwarf Stellaris. DCS is another example.
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Bandwagon
Kolohe
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Here’s a summary of Steam games with the most paid DLC by sheer count — split into two lists you asked for:
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Top Games by Number of Paid DLC Priced $9 or More
There isn’t an official Steam-wide ranked dataset publicly available that breaks down DLC counts by price threshold, but based on community tracking and known large DLC catalogs that mostly include $9+ DLC items, the following titles are among the highest:
1. Train Simulator / Train Simulator Classic — hundreds of paid DLCs ($19–$40+ each common). Extremely large catalogue of routes, trains, scenarios.
2. Rocksmith 2014 Remastered Edition — Thousands of song DLCs (often priced ~$2–$4, but many song packs and premium songs were $9+ historically and counted as paid DLC).
3. The Sims 4 — Around ~80 DLC packs including game packs, expansion packs, kits — many $19.99+.
4. Cities: Skylines — 40+ DLCs with many priced $9.99+; large expansion packs add major gameplay features.
5. Dead by Daylight — 45+ DLC packs (chapters often $9.99+) adding killers, survivors, maps.
6. Crusader Kings II / Crusader Kings III — Paradox strategy titles with dozens of DLC expansions (most $9+).
7. Europa Universalis IV — Dozens of paid expansion packs, many $9–$19.
8. Monster Hunter Rise — Many titled expansions/content packs (varies by release).
9. Microsoft Flight Simulator X (Steam Edition) — ~200+ aircraft/scenery DLC (many $9–$20+).
10. Dead or Alive 6 (and similar fighters) — Many character/season DLCs often priced $9+.
>Note: Counts change over time as new DLC are released (especially for ongoing live games), and exact listings by Steam store API would be required to compute precise current totals per price tier.
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Top Games by Number of Paid DLC of Any Price
These are known from community sources to have the largest total number of purchasable DLC items on Steam, regardless of price:
1. Train Simulator / Train Simulator Classic — ~700+ paid DLC items historically tracked (routes, trains).
2. Rocksmith 2014 Remastered Edition — Over 1,000+ DLC items (individual songs & packs).
3. The Sims 4 — ~80+ DLC packs.
4. Cities: Skylines — ~40+ downloadable packs.
5. Dead by Daylight — ~45 DLC chapters.
6. Crusader Kings II — Dozens of DLC.
7. Europa Universalis IV — Dozens of paid expansions.
8. Monster Hunter Rise — Numerous paid content bits.
9. Microsoft Flight Simulator X (Steam) — ~230 paid DLCs.
10. Payday 2 — ~30+ DLC packs (heists, weapon packs, characters).
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Notes & Clarifications
On counts:
DLC totals can include expansions, packs, character packs, cosmetic packs, route/tracks, music DLC, etc. Most community lists count every unique DLC entry visible on Steam.
Train Simulator and Rocksmith dominate due to modular purchasable content (each piece sold separately).
It’s hard to filter DLC counts by exact Steam price (like “$9 or more”) without live Steam API data. The above $9+ list includes games where historically many DLC items are full priced ($9.99+).
Some titles (like Rocksmith) have most DLC cheaper than $9 each but also had pricier bundles historically.
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RankMost Paid DLC ($9+) Titles (Estimated)Most Paid DLC (Any Price)
1Train SimulatorRocksmith 2014
2Rocksmith 2014Train Simulator
3The Sims 4The Sims 4
4Cities: SkylinesCities: Skylines
5Dead by DaylightDead by Daylight
6Crusader Kings II/IIICrusader Kings II
7Europa Universalis IVEuropa Universalis IV
8Monster Hunter RiseMonster Hunter Rise
9Flight Simulator XFlight Simulator X
10Dead or Alive 6Payday 2
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If you want exact current DLC counts pulled directly from Steam’s database for a custom list (e.g., “every game with >20 paid DLC”), I can help build a script or use Steam API to generate that dynamically!
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TBT-TheBigToe
<Rickshaw Potatoes>
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Goonsquad Officer
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It's going to be the new bat to beat people that any given person dislikes
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Once AI actually becomes good enough that it's not spottable constantly and show a lack of QA to save money, I think it'll be fine, currently though people just notice it pretty easily and when you have companies making tens of millions of dollars a month with live service shit skimping on paying an artist for a day to touch up the AI generated shit so it doesn't look so AI generated, people are going to complain. This is is a clear downgrade in quality just to save costs, costs saved that are likely not being reinvested into other aspects of the game anyway and instead going straight into the pocket of shareholders.
It's here to stay so you can argue it's pointless to bitch but ppl still bitch about day 1 DLC and lootboxes and for the most part these have not taken over because of the bitching, they still exist and they're still criticized when they get released, which limits them to a few garbage publishers that you know are trash like EA. I feel this is where it should be for AI slop that is so fucking low quality even a blind monkey can notice shit is weird.
Caeden
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Thing is, all art has a portion that is borrowed or inspired even subconsciously. I think with AI a good game designer or game artist will be able to enhance their throughput while feeding the algorithm styles to make it their own vision.
At some point it will come down to taste. I have always loved the older style comic art that clearly show the halftone dot printing or whatever versus the cleaner modern computer art. This is a purely subjective preference. I could give two shits about listening to music on vinyl. And I’ve seen modern comic art that was quite good when it wasn’t trying to sell me a message.
Plus the current people railing on AI belong to the same commie camps that would have us digging canals with spoons.
At some point it will come down to taste. I have always loved the older style comic art that clearly show the halftone dot printing or whatever versus the cleaner modern computer art. This is a purely subjective preference. I could give two shits about listening to music on vinyl. And I’ve seen modern comic art that was quite good when it wasn’t trying to sell me a message.
Plus the current people railing on AI belong to the same commie camps that would have us digging canals with spoons.