As we head into the New Year, Valve has released a look back at 2018’s best selling VR titles on Steam.
Alongside the ongoing Steam Winter Sale (concluding January 3rd @ 10AM PT), Valve has published a series of ‘The Best of 2018‘ charts, showing which titles on Steam have fared the best across several metrics. Among the charts is a list of the top 100 best selling VR games on Steam in 2018, as measured by gross revenue.
The chart is broken into tiers ranging from Bronze to Platinum. Refreshing the page shuffles the titles in each tier, meaning we can’t tell directly how individual games in each tier stack up in terms of revenue, we only know that games in a higher tier had higher revenue than games in a lower tier.
Here’s a look at the Gold and Platinum tiers; since Valve is sorting each tier in a random order, we charted each title’s overall user reviews and sorted by that figure to bring a bit of order to the groups.
Platinum
| Game | Release | Positive User Reviews |
| Beat Saber | 2018 [EA] | 97% |
| GORN | 2017 [EA] | 97% |
| Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades | 2016 [EA] | 97% |
| Onward | 2016 [EA] | 91% |
| Pavlov VR | 2017 [EA] | 89% |
| SUPERHOT VR | 2017 | 89% |
| Arizona Sunshine | 2016 | 86% |
| Job Simulator | 2016 | 84% |
| Skyrim VR | 2018 | 82% |
| OrbusVR | 2017 [EA] | 81% |
| VR Kanojo | 2018 | 75% |
| Fallout 4 VR | 2017 | 71% |
Games in the platinum tier are mostly expected; though it’s interesting to see that 50% of this year’s platinum titles are in Early Access, slightly up from 42% last year. Interestingly, none of the platinum games are Early Access graduates (compared to 25% in the gold tier).
While the titles in platinum are mostly expected, the one that surprised us is VR Kanojo (2018), a relatively pricey ($50) adult VR game which was released in 2017 but hit Steam this year.
Despite relatively low reviews, Fallout 4 VR (2017) continues to sell well thanks to its highly recognized IP. It’s Bethesda brethren, Skyrim VR, also joins the platinum list having launched on PC earlier this year.
Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades takes platinum its second year running, and stands out for not only being launched initially back in 2016, but also for its exceptional user reviews.
In the platinum tier, 33% of titles were released in 2016, 42% in 2017, and 25% in 2018. It might seem surprising that only 25% of the titles were released in 2018, though the bulk of the non-VR platinum list is shared between 2018 (25%) and 2015 (25%).
Gold
| Game | Release | Positive User Reviews |
| Space Pirate Trainer | 2017 [prev. EA] | 95% |
| Tilt Brush | 2016 | 95% |
| I Expect You To Die | 2017 | 92% |
| Sairento VR | 2018 [prev. EA] | 90% |
| Sprint Vector | 2018 | 90% |
| Raw Data | 2017 [prev. EA] | 87% |
| STAND OUT: VR Battle Royale | 2017 [EA] | 77% |
| Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality | 2017 | 74% |
| Budget Cuts | 2018 | 73% |
| Zero Caliber VR | 2018 [EA] | 73% |
| Virtual Desktop | 2016 | 69% |
| DOOM VFR | 2017 | 59% |
In the gold tier only 17% of titles are in Early Access (compared to 50% in the platinum tier). That’s down considerably compared to last year’s gold tier in which 33% of games were in Early Access. Additionally, 25% of this year’s gold tier are Early Access graduates.
Following a similar pattern from Fallout 4 VR and Skyrim VR, DOOM VFR continues to see steady sales thanks to its recognizable IP, apparently despite decidedly mixed reviews. This is the game’s second year in the gold tier.
In the gold tier, 17% of titles were released in 2016, 50% in 2017, and 33% in 2018. That compares similarly to the non-VR gold tier in which 42% of titles were released in 2017.
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Check out the full list of Steam’s top selling VR titles in 2018 to see which games made it into the Silver and Bronze tiers.
Looking for this year’s top VR games across platforms? Check out Road to VR’s 2018 Game of the Year & Design Award winners.
