Steam Has Already Generated $16.2 Billion in 2025, and Gabe Newell Celebrates with a New Superyacht
Steam’s growth shows no signs of slowing down. Over the past several years, Valve’s platform has consistently broken its own concurrent user records, including the most recent peak of around forty one point six million players online simultaneously just one month ago. This massive engagement continues to translate directly into revenue, with 2025 shaping up to be another landmark year for the PC gaming giant.
According to data compiled by Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics, Steam has already generated approximately sixteen point two billion dollars in sales during 2025, a five point seven percent increase compared to the fifteen point three three billion dollars recorded in 2024. The analysis, published via Alinea Analytics, also notes that there are still more than forty days remaining in the year. Considering the impending holiday season, Black Friday rush, winter sales, and year end gifting, Steam is widely expected to push past seventeen billion dollars before 2025 concludes.
Steam’s revenue model plays a major role in Valve’s exceptional profitability. The platform keeps a thirty percent cut of revenue until a title reaches ten million dollars in sales, reducing to twenty five percent until fifty million, and twenty percent beyond that threshold. Competing storefronts like the Epic Games Store and the Microsoft Store have attempted to counter Steam’s dominance by offering more favorable splits, giving developers eighty eight percent of revenue while keeping only twelve percent. Epic famously paid substantial sums for timed exclusivity deals, such as Borderlands 3, and its founder Tim Sweeney once publicly challenged Valve to match Epic’s developer friendly revenue share.
Valve never budged. Despite aggressive competition, Steam’s unmatched user base and ecosystem loyalty ensured that Epic’s tactics had almost no negative impact on Valve’s growth. Instead, both platforms expanded, yet Steam remains the clear leader in digital PC game distribution.
Alinea Analytics estimates that Valve has already earned four billion dollars in profit from Steam sales in 2025 alone. With such staggering yearly revenue, it is little surprise that Valve president, co founder, and majority owner Gabe Newell continues to live an extraordinarily lavish lifestyle.
Earlier this month, Boat International reported that Newell took delivery of his latest superyacht, the Leviathan, a one hundred eleven meter custom designed vessel built by Oceanco, a shipbuilding company that Newell himself acquired earlier this year. The superyacht can host twenty two guests and thirty three crew members and features two gyms, a spa, a bar, a basketball half court, a beach club, a compact hospital, and an entertainment room equipped with fifteen high end gaming PCs.
Newell recently shared that he now lives full time at sea while still remotely contributing to Valve’s ongoing hardware and software initiatives. With the upcoming launches of Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and the new Steam Controller next year, Steam’s ecosystem is preparing for yet another wave of expansion. And with revenue continuing to climb, it seems increasingly likely that this will not be the last superyacht added to the Valve founder’s fleet.
Do you think Steam should adopt a more developer friendly revenue share, or has Valve earned its dominant position? Share your thoughts below.
