Steam Breaks Revenue Records, But New Games Account for Just 21% of Sales – WGB

The valve seems to have a lifespan. According to new data, the company is making more money through Steam than ever before. Meanwhile, the entire industry seems to be trying to set everything on fire.

Data comes from Alinea Analytics, so as always, statistics should not be taken as 100% accurate. However, the company has a strong track record when it comes to measuring sales and revenue.

Valve’s platform managed to earn an estimated $11.1 billion in total gaming revenue during the first six months of 2026, representing a 14.5% year-over-year increase. Apparently, that was 8% better than the second half of 2025, which is surprising when you consider that the end of the year includes the holiday season and many of its sales.

Since the first half of the year ended, Steam is reported to have invested another half a billion dollars, which takes its estimated value by 2026 to $ 11.6 billion.

According to Alinea, one of the main drivers driving Steam’s success is the huge increase in Asian players, especially those from China. Other factors include high prices for new releases, viral co-op games, publishers making better use of their back catalog and companies sneaking back to Steam after trying to push customers away from their launchers.

Let’s put Steam’s growth in perspective, shall we? In 2017, Steam generated an estimated $5.5 billion in revenue for the entire year. By 2025, that had risen to nearly $20 billion.

And that’s without Half-Life 3. But at least they gave us a cheap little computer.

According to Alinea’s estimates, only 21% of Steam’s revenue in the first half of 2026 comes from games released this year. That’s down from the first half of 2025, when 27% of revenue came from games released during that calendar year. In the first half of 2024, the figure was 29%.

In other words, the remaining 79% comes from titles released in 2025 or earlier.

Part of that can be attributed to Steam’s ever-growing collection of great games, many of which can be bought repeatedly at great prices during the never-ending sales parade. However, the majority of this catalog revenue undoubtedly comes from long-running mega-hitters, including games like Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, PUBG, Apex Legends, Rust, Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto V.

Alinea doesn’t provide an explanation of which older games are making the most money, though, so those examples should be considered reasonable suspects rather than confirmed offenders.

This is not a new problem in this industry. New releases are facing an increasingly difficult challenge to convince people to abandon long-standing, established games like Fortnite, Roblox, Minecr.afterGrand Theft Auto Online, League of Legends and the latest incarnation of Call of Duty.

Newzoo previously found that games that are at least six years old will account for more than 60% of PC and console gaming time by 2023. Just five games – Fortnite, Roblan oxLeague of Legends, Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto V – reportedly accounted for 27% of all gaming time on their own.

That pattern hasn’t changed much, either. As I covered earlier this year, the five most played games on PlayStation in 2025 were Fortnite, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto V, Roblox and Minecraft – the same top five as in 2024.

People’s gaming time is increasingly dominated by these huge, constantly updated games. Meanwhile, other data shows that 63% of gamers buy two or fewer new games each year, including nearly one-third who buy less than one game a year.

That leaves new releases competing not only against all the other games launching at the same time, but against decades of proven classics, heavily discounted blockbusters and live service games where players have already spent hundreds or thousands of hours.

But anyway, which new games were the most successful on Steam this year?

According to Alinea, sitting at the head of the grid Forza Horizon 6which has generated an estimated $197.7 million through Steam since its launch less than two months ago. About $4 million of that apparently came from DLC, including about $2 million from VIP memberships.

Alinea estimates that the game has sold 3.5 million copies on Steam and is generating revenue three times faster than Forza Horizon 5 he did at the same time in his life.

That sounds pretty funny considering Xbox is currently being reset because its business is “unhealthy”.

However, Forza Horizon 6 has been a rare bright spot for the company. Early estimates suggested that it was already approaching five million sales across platforms within its first week, and I thought it was the best game in the series so far, even if it was a very safe bet.

Just behind it Bad Need for Residentswhich grossed an estimated $194.5 million and sold approximately 3.4 million copies on Steam. That includes nearly $1.3 million from the Deluxe Beauty Kit alone.

Interestingly, Alinea estimates that only 8.9% of people who listed the game before launch have purchased it so far. That sounds low, though Resident Evil games tend to enjoy long sales, helped by regular discounts and Capcom’s increasing habit of turning its back catalog into a money printing machine.

In third place is Crimson Desert, sitting at just over $190 million since its launch in March. That’s particularly impressive because it’s the only completely new IP among the top three, although Alinea notes that monthly revenue is starting to decline as the first wave of full-price sales dries up.

Slay the Spire 2 comes in next with an estimated $141.7 million, but is the clear winner when it comes to volume. The early access sequel reportedly sold 7.1 million copies in just four months, plus Forza Horizon 6 again Bad Need for Residents combined.

Its low price of $25 means it can’t compete with those games for gross profit, but selling over seven million copies while it’s still available early is frankly ridiculous.

Subnautica 2 follows with an estimated $133.6 million, most of which was generated during the early access launch month of May.

Finally, there is Mechcha Chameleonwhich grossed an estimated $71.3 million despite costing only about $6.

That makes it comfortably the smallest game in the group in terms of price and development team, but Alinea says it’s also the best-selling new Steam release of 2026 in terms of copies sold. It is also said to be the best-selling game of 2026 in terms of copies sold, too.