Valve reports seventh year of 100% sales growth on Steam

2011 was another successful year for Valve, which announced
today that its digital games distribution service Steam enjoyed its seventh
year of over 100% sales growth. The announcement follows news of another
milestone for the service, which hit a record peak of 5 million concurrent users during its 2011 Holiday Sale.

 With over 1,800 games in Steam’s online
catalogue and over 40 million user accounts, Valve reports that Steam has
double its service infrastructure to meet rising demand from users. Last year,
the service delivered 780 petabytes (about 780,000 terabytes) of game data to
gamers.

“Steam and Steamworks continues to evolve to keep up with customer and
developer demands for new services and content,” said Valve president and
co-founder Gabe Newell. The long list of popular titles released last year,
like Skyrim, Modern Warfare 3, and Deus Ex certainly helped contribute to the
service’s success.

Last year also saw the launch of several forward looking features for Steam,
including Steam Trading, which
allows users to exchange in-game items and gifts and support for 18 free-to-play titles.

Steam’s next big target may be your living room. “Looking forward, we are
preparing for the launch of the Big Picture UI mode, which will allow gamers to
experience Steam on large displays and in more rooms of the house.”” teased
Newell.