Thanks to Sergey Galyonkin, the man behind Steam Spy, we've been given some insight into the sales on Steam last year, and there are some surprises in there.
Although Steam doesn't have heavy hitters like Battlefield 1 or Overwatch, the list of top earners is an interesting read. Being estimates, it's difficult to say for certain if it's Civilization VI or Grand Theft Auto V that generated the most revenue during 2016, but the two ended the year with a good difference to the second runner-up, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
Galyonkin also notes that Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare performed a lot worse than 2015's Call of Duty: Black Ops III, a trend we've also seen on the charts of physical sales for both PC and consoles (note that Infinite Warfare was the first game in the series to not be released on the older console generation).
Being released as early as in February, Stardew Valley got a head start on many of the other games on the list, but it's still quite impressive how ConcernedApe's game beat the likes of Civilization VI, The Division, Doom, and Rise of the Tomb Raider in regards to new owners. It also made more money than big productions like Mafia III and Dishonored 2.
The top earning indie game of 2017 was No Man's Sky which made over $43 million US dollars on Steam, but it also received a lot more media coverage than the rest of them.
All in all (again estimated) Steam sold $3.5 million worth of games in 2017, a number that includes keys bought elsewhere and redeemed on Steam. Did you spend a lot last year on Steam?
Thanks, PC Gamer.