As much as it's great to hear that Valve is working on games again, it doesn't need to. Indeed, if it just sat back and updated the Steam store now and again Valve would never need to do much else again, because it is making an exorbitant amount of money. In 2017 alone, it broke all previous years' sales records and brought in more than $4.3 billion.
That's a growth of almost a billion dollars over 2016, where it brought in just £3.5 billion over that same 12 month period. Much of that growth is being attributed to specific titles too, as Valve raked in more than half its overall revenue from the top 100 games on its platform. That includes games like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, CS:GO and GTA:V.
Perhaps the most amazing statistic to go with all of these numbers though, is that none of this involves DLC, in-game purchases, or Steam Card sales. Valve will have made millions from DotA 2 microtransactions and a number of other games, as well as taking its cut from the sales from other developers and publishers with popular games on the platform.
2017 was the best year for Valve so far: Steam's share of the market grew to $4.3B, not counting in-apps and DLCs.
If you're at #GDC18, come to my talk at 4PM at 2005 West for even more numbers and graphs. pic.twitter.com/j4a15aBvpZ— Steam Spy GDC (@Steam_Spy) March 22, 2018
All of these stats should be taken with a small pinch of salt however, as they don't come from Valve itself. Instead they have been collated by Steam watchmen, SteamSpy, who announced the numbers during the recent Games Developer Conference.
If true though, they suggest Valve has an enormous stake in the gaming industry, as you might expect. From PCGamesN's estimations, it could mean Steam sales equate to close to 20 percent of all PC digital sales globally.
