The Limits to Measuring Game Success
Every creative industry has its preferred metric for measuring success, for better or worse.
Hollywood has “box office gross.” Netflix has “hours viewed.” And Spotify has “most streamed.” The games industry is no different. As the games business has transitioned away from retail, many players and armchair analysts have begun paying special attention to the data provided by digital platforms like Valve’s Steam, particularly “peak concurrent users” (peak CCU) as a way to compare the relative success of their favorite games.
