Bohemia Interactive Sold 174 Copies of Arma 2 on Day One on Steam. 15 Years Later, the Czechs Reflect on „the Power of Digital Distribution”
The CEO of Bohemia Interactive revealed the sales statistics of the studio's games on Steam. In doing so, he noted how strong digital distribution is.
It's undeniable that Steam is a platform that gives the developers significant opportunities. Placing your game on it is not one of the most difficult tasks, and the community reach gained this way is huge. Suffice it to mention that in September it had over 38 million concurrent players at one point. Marek Spanel, president of Bohemia Interactive, experienced the power of Steam first-hand and shared some interesting statistics.
Bohemia Interactive's results on Steam
As he reported in a post on X, the beginnings were not rosy at all. On the day of the premiere of Arma 2 on Steam, i.e. on June 1, 2009, the game sold only 174 copies. Of course, Valve's platform was not as big then as it is now - according to SteamDB, at its peak around that time, just under 2 million people were playing on it. Nonetheless, the result of Arma 2 was still quite low.
However, Spanel compared this with today's data from Bohemia Interactive, which is definitely more impressive.
- Sales of studio's products through Steam - 40,933,454 copies.
- Activation of studio's products by keys - 6,327,383 copies.
- Total number of products sold - 47,260,837 copies.
Fifteen years later, I want to commend Valve for creating a platform that connects developers with players around the world. This is the power of digital distribution!
Games Arma 3 and DayZ certainly played a significant role in these results. The tactical shooter can still sell 700,000 copies a month even over 10 years after its premiere. On the other hand, DayZ is a global hit, which is currently at its peak and reached a record number of simultaneous players - 78 937 - just yesterday. This is of course thanks to the recently released Frostline expansion.
