GameGrin Staff's Steam Year in Review
We've all seen it and rejoiced at the amount of hours we've spent playing videogames — Steam's 2023 in Review. On release day, our staff chat was blown up by everyone sharing their own stats and things they were proudest of, and seeing how our What We're Playing list has been so famous for a long time, we figured it was worth sharing this with our loyal readers, too.
So, to celebrate the end of 2023, we compiled a list of all of the staff who wanted to partake in the article so you could snoop on all of our Year in Review stats. These links should take you to everyone's individual profile section, meaning that you can snoop on who played what over the year (and no, this time, Artura didn't get an 18+ game on her most-played, unlike 2022...).
Alana Dunitz
Starting with a name you've likely seen if you have checked out any of our reviews — Alana Dunitz is our review expert that, quite frankly, we think should be trying to take a break over the holidays to play with her kids. But alas, we can't quite force her to take a break, and it's not like we really tried that hard here at GameGrin Towers; someone needs to do the reviews over the holiday period while everyone else is resting.
Alana played a total of 94 new games and revisited 16 titles. Surprising no one, she also had a preference for Side Scrollers — so much so, she broke her Steam graph. Again, it is surprising to no one, considering her gamer tag is retrogamergirl. Check out her full Year in Review right here!
Andrew Duncan
Site Editor, Head Honcho, Grinnest Grinner that Grinned the Grin, Andrew Duncan has been around for more years than most of the staff, and he was happy to share his year of gaming with everyone. You might know him for his... shall we say, naughtier taste in games, with every DEAD OR ALIVE Xtreme Venus Vacation news piece on this website written by him and a slew of 18+ title reviews.
Andrew Duncan, who goes by the name Acelister everywhere else (and we call him that in the staff rooms, truth be told) played 25 new games this year and revisited 19 titles (one of which I can assure you is DEAD OR ALIVE Xtreme Venus Vacation). He's a big fan of anime, cyberpunk, and sci-fi, and his graph really perfectly represents him as a whole. Check out his whole list right here!
Anna Duncan
Mrs. Site Editor, Mrs. Head Honcho, Mrs. Grinnest Grinner that Grinned the Grin, you’ll recognise Anna Duncan as the one who brings all of the good news — free games. She’s in charge of writing the news regarding the Epic Games Store and all of the free stuff you can get for it alongside some Humble bundles and news pieces about best releases on Steam. We know her as the person who talks about her kids all of the time and doesn’t let us put our work up until she says otherwise (essentially, a tyrant in all ways of the word). This year, Crafty played 21 new games and revisited 10 old ones.
You’ll find that a large amount of her playtime goes to either playing Cyberpunk 2077 (we’ve asked her repeatedly to stop) or numerous simulators. As such, Steam views her the same, too — she has a high cyberpunk and life sim liking in her genres, but this failed to mention her egregious amount of playtime on Dead by Daylight and her overall love for everything simulator. Find out more about her here!
Ariel Chloe Mann
One of the newcomer writers to our website, you might recognise Ariel Chloe Mann by her love for Counter-Strike 2 or her capability to speak more languages than we can count. She played 34 new games this year and revisited 34 games, though most impressive is her egregious 51% of playtime on the newly released Counter-Strike 2 and a total of 774 sessions and a 43-day streak. It does make one wonder, however — how many of those are temporary rage quits only to come back for another round?
Much like our GameGrin-addicted staff member, Alana Dunitz, Ariel Chloe Mann managed to break the slider, showing that she's a bit of a huge fan of stealth with some metroidvania and hero shooter sprinkled in. With Counter-Strike 2, her verbal hate for Overwatch 2, and Hollow Knight being her third most-played game, this pretty accurately represents her. Check out her full Year in Review here!
Artura Dawn
Since this hilarious article was all Artura’s idea, we’ve decided someone else would write her summary… especially since she’s decided to make fun of us all (don’t worry; we have plans to get back at her).
So, you might know Artura Dawn by… well, everything. You see, she’s a bit of a workaholic, batting out a whopping 994 pieces since joining GameGrin in 2021! We can’t tell who she’s driven into lunacy more — the higher-ups or the staff! From an insane number of guides to comedic articles and news pieces, she’s a jack-of-all-trades.
…and Steam couldn’t agree more with both of those statements. Throughout 2023, Artura played a total of 122 games and revisited 33. But the real surprise here is the unreasonable amount of achievements she unlocked, clocking out at a whopping 2,092! So it’s no surprise that in her top three games, Cookie Clicker takes the lead with 21% of her playtime, followed by SMITE, Immortals of Aveum, and Lies of P. Steam nailed it when it said she loves MOBAs, 2D platformers, soulslikes, and clickers! Check the whole overview here!
Bex Prouse
Good ol' Bexxy has been with us at GameGrin for a couple of years, now, and we're thrilled whenever she works with us! You might recognise her from her various anniversary articles or even her ranking of the worst mothers in Final Fantasy in honour of Final Fantasy XVI.
Bex played 15 new games over the year and revisited five titles, with most of her time going to Raft! She's described by Steam as a horror, satire, JRPG lover, which we think describes her quite well (her second most-played title this year is Priest Simulator: Vampire Show — that's all you need to know). If you want to learn more about her year, check it out right here!
Gary Sheppard
Ah, Gary Sheppard — he's had a tough year. He came back from a hiatus to be forced to change his gamer tag because of TERFs... ouch. Now, sporting the new Dombalurina (he'll always be Dom in our hearts anyway), he's shared his Year in Review with 23 new games played this year and 15 games revisited.
Dom is best described as a puzzle, space, city-builder... or so Steam says. We at GameGrin don't really disagree; we really would call Gary a city-builder. If you want to learn more about his personality, check out his yearly review right here!
Kyle Nutland
Kyle Nutland used to be our "Head of Article Quality Assurance" (as he wanted us to put it) before he retired into the depths of GameGrin and made it his life mission to make everyone alphabetise their games... and alphabetise them right. Over the course of his extended leave, he didn't play that many new games because he spends an egregious amount of time on The Sims 4 — we mock him about it in the meetings.
Kyle is notorious for breaking the You Are What You Play scale as well, with his life sim, open world survival craft, and metroidvania being some of the categories that are used to describe him. We think Steam should have given up and put "Sims" as one of the categories, but alas, we don't run the client. Check out his full history here!
Martin Heath
Martin Heath is another of our newcomers this year, and we asked — nay, demanded — that he share his Steam Year in Review. All you need to know about him is that he's a professional bungler; it perfectly describes him. This bungle boi played 62 new games this year and revisited 39 titles, of which Phasmophobia took the top spot.
He may not exactly like the fact that Steam sees him as a MOBA player, but after playing SMITE with some of the other staff members earlier in the year, we like to think he'd be okay with it. Aside from that, Steam thinks he’s a metroidvania, soulslike, open world survival craft lover, and we couldn't agree more. Learn more about Martin's Year in Review here!
Violet Plata
And finally, we have Violet Plata, who you may recognise for her work in interviews on the website. She likes to talk to interviewers nearly as much as she likes to talk about her love for Disney Dreamlight Valley and the fact that she beat Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (and never lets anyone forget it). This year, she played 209 new games and revisited 49 titles of the past (one of which is Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice — don't forget it).
Our Spooks (as we call her in staff channels) is a walking contradiction — she loves cosy games, she loves farming simulators, and she loves Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. She really, really loves Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Can you tell we're tired of her talking about Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice? Check out her Year in Review here!
That's it for our staff! These were all of the members who wanted to partake in our article, and we hope that you enjoy snooping into GameGrin's 2023 — see you next year!
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