What just happened? Just when you think Steam has hit its pinnacle, the platform reaches another milestone. December saw Valve's storefront generate an unbelievable $1.6 billion in revenue. Not only is that a 22.7% increase compared to a year earlier, but it's also the company's highest-grossing month ever.
December is always a good month for Steam. The annual winter sale is a huge earner, and many gamers wake up on Christmas Day to find Steam voucher cards among their presents.
Alinea Analytics' latest newsletter reports that over 100 million players helped generate a record $1.6 billion in gross revenue for Steam last month. That's over a fifth more than December 2024's figure, and is higher than December 2020, when the pandemic drove revenue up to a high of $1.4 billion.
Alinea Analytics also breaks down the games that helped push Steam to its record revenue high. Unsurprisingly Arc Raiders led the way. The third-person extraction shooter – one of our Best PC Games (You Should Be Playing) – has sold a total of 7 million copies on Steam since it launched on October 30. 250,000 of those sales came on December 26 alone, and it recently hit its highest daily active user count: 3.2 million people, 52% of whom were playing it via Steam.
Between December 21 and January 4, Arc Raiders was Steam's top seller with 1.2 million copies sold. Some of the other titles reflect the Steam Winter Sale's discounts: Quantic Dream's Detroit: Become Human was in second with 993,000 units after being discounted to just $4.
Co-op climbing game PEAK was third, followed by Icarus (down to $3), Battlefield 6 (30% off at $49), R.E.P.O, and Slay the Spire, which was discounted to its lowest price ever of $2.
During the same holiday period, Arc Raiders generated $32 million in revenue. That put it in second place after Counter-Strike 2, which held its usual number one position.
Valve recently revealed its best-selling games throughout 2025. It doesn't order the titles, but some of the top games in the Platinum tier also appear on Alinea Analytics' list: Arc Raiders, Battlefield 6, and R.E.P.O.
Steam revenue hit a record $1.6 billion in December as Arc Raiders led the way
