Most Played Racing Titles on Steam in July 2023

Steam Most Played July 2023 The Crew 2.jpg
The popularity of racing games and simulations is hard to gauge, especially since they seem to vary considerably around the releases of new content, big updates or even influences of real-world events. What can be gauged, however, is cold, hard numbers - so we did just that for the most important racing titles on Steam in July 2023.

Image credit: Ubisoft

Just like in previous months, not much has changed at the top of the list for most played racing titles on Steam. The podium spots remain unchanged yet again, but a somewhat surprising switch of positions pushes one big title out of the top five for July.

Note: While iRacing is available on Steam as well, its numbers are not representative as most players acces the sim through its own UI. As a result, its statistics are not included in this article.

Surprises in the Top Ten​

After immediately cracking the top five in the month of its release, F1 23 has slipped down a spot already with a noticeable loss of average player count, posting a 26,22% deficit compared to the previous month. Instead, the official Formula One game has been overtaken by SnowRunner, which received two new locations and two new trucks as part of its July update. The title has seen an improvement of almost 35% of its average player count.

However, even SnowRunners' numbers pale in comparison to the biggest mover of July 2023: The Crew 2 saw an increase of almost 280% in average players and gained eight positions in the ranking, easily cracking the top ten this time. The game's most recent update has been deployed in May already, though - maybe the previews of its successor The Crew Motorfest have reignited interest in the title.

Meanwhile, Need for Speed Unbound jumped its predecessor Heat again following the release of the Vol. 3 Update, as well as its inclusion in the EA Play program in late June. Further down the order, Need for Speed Heat (39,98%) and Automobilista 2 (21,6%) have seen significant increases in interest as well, the latter due to its big update to v1.5 including the revised tire physics and the Adrenaline Pack DLC.

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The Numbers
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About author
Yannik Haustein
Lifelong motorsport enthusiast and sim racing aficionado, walking racing history encyclopedia.

Sim racing editor, streamer and one half of the SimRacing Buddies podcast (warning, German!).

Heel & Toe Gang 4 life :D

Comments

Wonder if Kunos at release date had any thoughts about AC life span and precasts about peak time.
Increasing numbers from month to month still here +9 years later is mindblowing.

This is what a healthy modding community can do.

Therefore, for simracing in general let's continue to cherish this opportunity to the end of days.

Btw: Personally for the time being not counting so much in the Steam "cold, hard numbers", though in fact been simracing far more in recent months than when going into this year. This due to old sim habits, digging further into my old garage barn finds and trying to get them running on more modern OS. And really haven't a clue on my personal list, not using a stop watch.
 
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Assetto Corsa: 8,707.9, thank you Kunos for this outstanding simulator, still gaining in popularity after all those years. Just phenomenal.
It was already special when all it had was a Lotus Elise hotlapping at Magione.
Now that it has more content available than one can possibly hope to drive in a life time, it is a monument.
Downloading the latest track recently built in Hungary as I write this and looking forward to try this latest addition.

A lot of this is due to the others continually falling flat on their faces during their development...

AC is stable enough for leagues to use and also easy enough to fix issues people have with certain cars... No other title is as easy to diagnose and fix an issue for a league event...
 
The direction needs to change, in a connected world where everyone interacts and competes some devs still didnt figure out what iracing figured out a long time ago ( even with a shady sim and shady payment model ) .... Private leagues are important but cant be the norm for some sims... and better integration needs to happen with the ones that use 3rd party apps to have organized championships and races, some like simracingsystem ( the first to come up ) had to jump so many barriers that for the devs of the games themselves would be easy ... being a good sim isnt enough, people need objectives , goals, better cheat protection, a place where it makes sense you keep coming back to "build" a reputation or compete on a regular basis ...

I agree with a lot of what you said...

It's plain as day that the sim racing part of the gaming industry is an online focussed community...

The titles with bad MP experiences just don't get the love they deserve no matter how good the physics are because they are held back by constant issues for leagues...

Whilst having something like iRacing helps bring in those who don't have a regular time they can be free to race in a league scenario and gives them a career path to follow that mimics a single player experience... The fact that there's nothing scripted, no AI lines for an easy way to stop the car behind from overtaking, no restarts because of a crash,. means it's a completely different animal to a single player career mode...

Having a stable netcode and a solid MP foundation is key for a simulations success... Without it you're looking at the bottom of these tables...
 
.....and it's plain as day imho that the majority of sim racers don't put as much importance on physics, FFB, tyres as other areas of sims like UI's or water puddles.

Should be there can be only one that is more right then the rest.

However how a individual sim feels to each of us is due to many things.
Games it does not affect nearly as much.


Sims should be like a proper simulator.
We should all feel it much the same way.
Therefore be able to better interpret and explain it.

I agree with others but my solution is simple at least to me.
Why do we need more then one engine ?
Studios could develop all your sims to be similar experience which is based in reality and facts and law. Feedback would be exponentially increased.

Games do not have these limitations.
 
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Why do we need more then one engine ?

The answer to this is an economic and political nightmare...

If all of these studios pooled their efforts together towards the goal of great racing simulation then for sure there would be a lot of great content and the players would spend zero time debating on what is more realistic...

So I completely agree with what you are thinking... It's just not going to happen until we live in the technological age and the economic beliefs have been adjusted to fit the age...
 
Funny, after 10 or so "game changer patches" AMS 2 still fights for the last places.
More sad than funny, because I like to have more online lobbies to choose from. But there are 3 obvious reasons for that:

1. Sim racing is a niche and AMS2 is because of its content a niche within a niche. No matter how good AMS2 is(it's currently the best in many aspects); there is only a small audience for it.

2. The majority of racing gamers are kids and they will always keep playing arcade (race)games or what feels the closest to it within the sim racing genre, so besides the real arcade titles(NFS/Forza etc.) they look for content in AC that suits them, like: Japanese traffic mod's, drift mod's, tourist ring or what's the most popular within the sim racing genre (GT3 so ACC).

3. And let's not forget that there's one thing that AMS2 is still the worst in: Online stability. The serious sim racers don't want to play offline and they don't want be bothered with bugs. I accepted the bugs of AMS2's MP, but I have to admit that it's horrible in its current state and I think that I'm an exception, because the online bugs are a serious struggle. The netcode always creates stutters/mini freezes, the servers don't function properly(countless issues), most sim racers are not patient enough for that and move back to iRacing or ACC. This despite that the racing experience of AMS2 is currently on top of all sim racing titles(way above iRacing/ACC/AC currently, iRacing/ACC/AC feel outdated to me). The exact same story goes for rF2, also great physics/ffb/content but the online experience is horrible, it's unplayable, there are zero servers with good content only nonsense servers with stoneage mod's. So the multiplayer part/bugs/experience is a huge cause too besides the "niche part" and the "kids".

So that explains the low player count. Because of point 1 and 2; AMS2 will never be on top of this list. But IF Reiza manages to fix point 3, then AMS2 can beat ACC's player count in the future and get maybe a bit above that with ~3K players or something max.(because of reason 1/2 never more), but until then, AMS2 will keep struggling with their player count.
 
As an AMS2 main user, I never thought I would see it have more racers than rFactor 2. And bearing in mind that the latter is probably on its best shape ever (cannot say with certainty as I uninstalled it many moons ago and I'm not looking back), I cannot understand why it's so low on the charts.
Well, you have answered your question yourself. A presumed superb game you are not willing to install anymore. That's unfortunate but that's a reality, many have lost patience and just have moved on.
 
Well, you have answered your question yourself. A presumed superb game you are not willing to install anymore. That's unfortunate but that's a reality, many have lost patience and just have moved on.
A another reason, true, so there's point 4.
 
Well, you have answered your question yourself. A presumed superb game you are not willing to install anymore. That's unfortunate but that's a reality, many have lost patience and just have moved on.
Dunno, I just didn't gel with the game. I tried, gave it a good amount hours, got on top of its driving model and could drive competitively. But I never liked how the mods that interested me handled, and the official content, to me, looked more like a move into iRacing territory. It's not that I lost patience, just that it's not for me.

But it seems like a decent platform for esports leagues IMO, and know several racers that use it just for that.
 
I hate story based sims... are they even sims? 99% of Iracing peeps don't use Steam. I'd love to see the real numbers for sims (on Steam and not on Steam). I'm sure Iracing would trounce a few of these right off the bat.
The same for the Crew, for Forza, for GT7, for NFS, for all the old non Steam titles (there are still many F1 Challenge users, you can already compete in online 2023 season leagues). These figures are pretty useless in general, just a clickbait.

EDIT : more interesting figures, which requires some real work, would be those of a complete study (with a representative sample of the computerized racing community) with ratios (the base in performance mesurement is to use ratios, never numbers): active players / sales (wich for example would show how bad AC is in that aspect, for the reason gamma123152 has stated and maybe others it would be good to know ; no offense against AC, it is just the easiest figure to get), % users turnover, moves between sims, related titles, sales / game cost (I'm pretty sure an obscure game like Kart Racing Pro is a good example of unknown success)...
 
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The answer to this is an economic and political nightmare...

If all of these studios pooled their efforts together towards the goal of great racing simulation then for sure there would be a lot of great content and the players would spend zero time debating on what is more realistic...

So I completely agree with what you are thinking... It's just not going to happen until we live in the technological age and the economic beliefs have been adjusted to fit the age...

I suggest they make a 3rdparty company separate from their own.
Who would fund it ?
Well everyone wanted to alpha test the next revolution.
Would not surprise me if you got more then enough users.

I not saying you just put these people together they could code better physics in a year. I think it would take much longer so they could end up building a base sim specifically to run the testing in the meantime so we could give feedback form Day 1.

Then go off their own ways, tweak the engine how they want.

What I want is not to have to change more then a few settings and jump from sim to sim.

I think they would all sell better you would get a new breed in the type don't want to play with things, set your seat and FFB force and away you go. :)


And most important everything looks the same in all sims out the front window ( same engine ) ..and they all drive very similar.

Then we all become fans of everyone else's sim because cast aspersions you are doing it to your sim as well lol so there would be no point to it anymore.
 
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D
More sad than funny, because I like to have more online lobbies to choose from. But there are 3 obvious reasons for that:

1. Sim racing is a niche and AMS2 is because of its content a niche within a niche. No matter how good AMS2 is(it's currently the best in many aspects); there is only a small audience for it.

2. The majority of racing gamers are kids and they will always keep playing arcade (race)games or what feels the closest to it within the sim racing genre, so besides the real arcade titles(NFS/Forza etc.) they look for content in AC that suits them, like: Japanese traffic mod's, drift mod's, tourist ring or what's the most popular within the sim racing genre (GT3 so ACC).

3. And let's not forget that there's one thing that AMS2 is still the worst in: Online stability. The serious sim racers don't want to play offline and they don't want be bothered with bugs. I accepted the bugs of AMS2's MP, but I have to admit that it's horrible in its current state and I think that I'm an exception, because the online bugs are a serious struggle. The netcode always creates stutters/mini freezes, the servers don't function properly(countless issues), most sim racers are not patient enough for that and move back to iRacing or ACC. This despite that the racing experience of AMS2 is currently on top of all sim racing titles(way above iRacing/ACC/AC currently, iRacing/ACC/AC feel outdated to me). The exact same story goes for rF2, also great physics/ffb/content but the online experience is horrible, it's unplayable, there are zero servers with good content only nonsense servers with stoneage mod's. So the multiplayer part/bugs/experience is a huge cause too besides the "niche part" and the "kids".

So that explains the low player count. Because of point 1 and 2; AMS2 will never be on top of this list. But IF Reiza manages to fix point 3, then AMS2 can beat ACC's player count in the future and get maybe a bit above that with ~3K players or something max.(because of reason 1/2 never more), but until then, AMS2 will keep struggling with their player count.
Indisputable logic, it's the best sim, therefore it has the lowest players count.
Takes one lap in GT3 car in ACC and AMS2 to see how far apart on "simulation" level these two are. You should take your VR goggles off and try it one day.
Better VR experience is not the same as better racing simulation.
 
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Indisputable logic, it's the best sim, therefore it has the lowest players count.
Takes one lap in GT3 car in ACC and AMS2 to see how far apart on "simulation" level these two are. You should take your VR goggles off and try it one day.
Better VR experience is not the same as better racing simulation.
AMS2 has a way better racing experience to me. It's subjective but to me the cars simply feel more alive in AMS2 and less artificial than ACC. No need to argue about it since I know that you feel the opposite about it and that's okay. And that's not only because of the better VR experience, the motion/FFB and simply how the car behaves feels better to me in AMS2.

And I still drive in ACC from time to time, I also had some great races in ACC (also recently with VR(1.9)and before that without VR in older versions). But especially since the last updates that AMS2 had, ACC feels outdated to me.
 
RF2 is not getting much developer attention, for obvious reasons. Could be that gamers see its on its end of life cycle and don't want to invest the time. AMS2 is getting better and better as well and pulling people like me away from RF2.
AMS2 overtook rf2 as my main sim a long time back now, and each release it just widens the gap.
was a time we used to joke the ideal game would have
assetto modding
rf2 ffb abd physics and
PC2 graphics..

Well.. aside from modding which is clunky AF, AMS2 is kicking that ball, HARD..
 
Premium
These numbers are the proof that AC will tragically bury all sims, past, present and future, including AC2.
That thing (AC) will never die as its userbase will keep it alive forever using whatever ghetto mods people seem to enjoy dearly.
Those numbers prove jack, I've tried AC and rejected it, I've tried popular on line racing and gaming and rejected it, I, along with 80% of the gran Turismo 7 players simply don't play on line, and I, like many others hold steam in disdain... just a third party billing company.
My interest in motor racing stretches over 60 years, and there's only one studio/group that has me keep firing up the program... Simbin for the GTR/L series.
As I see it, Steam is a gaming Woolworths, and their bestsellers are to be found in the bargain bins where often multiple copies of the same title are purchased.
 

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How often do you meet up (IRL) with your simracing friends?

  • Weekly

    Votes: 52 9.4%
  • Monthly

    Votes: 27 4.9%
  • Yearly

    Votes: 33 5.9%
  • Weekly at lan events

    Votes: 3 0.5%
  • Monthly at lan events

    Votes: 2 0.4%
  • Yearly at lan events

    Votes: 13 2.3%
  • Never have

    Votes: 434 78.2%
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