Steam’s sales numbers aren’t telling the whole story

On Tuesday, PC giant Valve broke down the state of Steam for an eager audience at the 2026 Game Developers Conference. As Valve told it, things have never been better for Steam. User growth is exponential, game releases are up, and developers have way more tools to help them bring their games to new audiences. Alongside this torrent of good news, Valve proudly displayed a graph with encouraging numbers — or so it seemed.