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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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

D
gamma123152
It is like you are trying to insult me. I play Nordschleife every night and literally, nobody is showing off cars everyone is just driving. What is not sim racing about that? There is a server doing racing also not just tourists. I just cannot understand your points of view, just because assetto corsa is offering modded traffic tracks like shutoko that is very popular with a certain audience, what is the problem? Do you think 10 thousand people are playing shutoko? Even tho I don't play that, why are those people not sim racing? They are still playing the real simulation I don't even care if they play forza, who cares... Your tribalistic points of view are really frustrating
Guess things would be different if you played Nordschleife in AMS2, as there it attracts only serious simmers, in AC you are stuck with Forza graduates kids like yourself, sorry. :p
 
Guess things would be different if you played Nordschleife in AMS2, as there it attracts only serious simmers, in AC you are stuck with Forza graduates kids like yourself, sorry. :p
Again: WHERE is it stated by me that AC ONLY has kids in the Nordschleife and that AMS2 ONLY has serious simmers? Nowhere! I had great races in the Nordschleife in AC too with great sim racers(and maybe some of them were kids and beated me, who knows? but that doesn't matter at all).

Stop twisting my words. You're changing this discussion to a personal attack here for no reason at all. Enough with your nonsense.
 
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D
Again: WHERE is it stated by me that AC ONLY has kids in the Nordschleife and that AMS2 ONLY has serious simmers? Nowhere! I had great races in the Nordschleife in AC too with great sim racers(and maybe some of them were kids and beated me, who knows? but that doesn't matter at all).

Stop twisting my words. You're changing this discussion to a personal attack here for no reason at all. Enough with your nonsense.
Short memory?

80-90% of the AC audience aren't sim racers. Most are kids that drive on the Japanese highway and the Tourist ring to show off their digital cars. Serious part is drifting, very small part are serious sim racers as in AMS2/rF2/iRacing (maybe equal number as AMS2 player count here or a little bit more).
 
Short memory?
Let me then explain it even further for you since you really don't seem to be able to understand it:

10-20% of all 8700 AC racers is still a serious amount of sim racers.

Those 10-20% of those racers are in OTHER SERVERS (in caps so that it's easier for you to understand the main point) than the lifestyle/drift/Shutoko/tourist-practice servers.

So there are also enough serious sim racers racing on tracks as the Nürburgring in AC to race with.

Clear now?

Edit: the laughing smiley means: "Andrew finally understood it". Congrats.
 
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I got Automobilista2, don't really like it much, would rather play Project Cars 2 or Project Cars Pagani Edition, along with Assetto Corsa, Forza 4 & 5.
 
I love BeamNG, I love smashing cars (or honestly anything destructable) into something then rewind it like nothing happened, similar to today's AAA company saying "Oh no! Anyway." when their new racing titles flop.
 
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