Steam’s soaring sales figures reveal a more complex narrative.

On Tuesday, Valve took the stage at the 2026 Game Developers Conference to share some exciting updates about Steam. According to the company, the platform is thriving like never before, with user growth skyrocketing, an increase in game releases, and a wealth of new tools available for developers to reach wider audiences. They even showcased a graph that appeared to highlight these positive trends.

The graph indicated that nearly 6,000 games made at least $100,000 on Steam in 2025, marking a 30% rise over the previous five years. Valve presented this information to counter the narrative that the platform is overwhelmed with too many games. With 19,000 new titles released in a single year, developers are understandably concerned about how to make their games stand out. Are they all competing for a shrinking market?

Valve argues that this isn’t the case. “We’ve been able to make the pie substantially bigger,” said Tom Giardino from Steam during the conference.

However, Mike Rose, founder of No More Robots, recently pointed out that the reality is more complex. He noted that the 6,000 games could include older titles, which paints a less optimistic picture of the Steam ecosystem.

Rose also highlighted that the figure doesn’t account for taxes or Valve’s share of the revenue, suggesting that a more realistic figure might be around $50,000. Given that most games are developed by teams, that amount can quickly diminish.

“How many multi-person studios do you know that could survive after making $50k from their game launch? Not many!!” Rose remarked.

In an email exchange, Rose acknowledged that Valve is one of the few platforms that actively supports small developers in terms of visibility. The storefront regularly introduces new features for both users and developers. However, he believes that Valve’s presentation obscures the underlying issues facing the industry.

“What I’m essentially saying is that anyone in the business of selling video games knows that the last few years have been unbelievably rough, and we’re in a horrible downward industry spiral across all platforms,” Rose stated. Just this past November, sales data revealed that the industry experienced its worst month in nearly two decades, even during a time typically associated with strong sales.

“But what has irked me here is that they also continuously love to make out publicly like everything is *absolutely fantastic*, no problems here at all, while the industry burns down,” Rose added. “It feels so disingenuous, and also just comes across as ‘well, *we* are making more money, therefore the industry is fine.'”

On a positive note, Valve does not rely on investors or ad placements like other storefronts. The panelists emphasized that the company prioritizes its users and developers, asserting that Valve’s success is directly linked to their satisfaction.

“That means we’re freed up to make decisions based exactly on what your happiness is looking like,” said Kaci Aitchison, Valve’s communications specialist. “If you tell us you’re not happy, we’re gonna work to try and fix that.”