Wonder why you’ve seen so many survival games on Steam over the past few years? Two of the top 20 trending games on SteamSpy — The Long Dark and Citadel: Forged with Fire — are survival games, and Rust and Ark: Survival Evolved are in the top 20 in terms of playtime.
Hundreds of thousands of people are playing, streaming, and watching these games. And it’s helped survival and horror games grow to a near $400 million sector for the first six months of 2017 (with January’s Resident Evil 7 leading), the market research firm SuperData estimates.
And it’s a sector I’ve long ignored. I’ve tried to get into Ark: Survival Evolved — a game making its transition from Early Access to full release on August 29 — both on PC and the PlayStation 4, but I died (either freezing to death or getting eaten by a dinosaur) before I was even able to gather up enough materials to craft a measly torch.
I’ve also been tinkering with Citadel: Forged with Fire. It’s Ark and DayZ with magic and monsters instead of dinos, bows, and guns. It’s rough, considering it still in an alpha-test state and launched in Early Access just as few weeks ago. But I’m going to keep casting for a path in Citadel — and as Blue Isle Studios adds features, spells, and more to its magical game, I’ll start seeing what thousands of others are liking about survival games.
And maybe even spend a buck or two as well.
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–Jason Wilson, GamesBeat managing editor
P.S. Breaking the law! Breaking the law!
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Source: PC Gaming Weekly: the magic of the $398 million survival game market
