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Steam has made a top-heavy $15 billion in gross revenue so far this year according to Alinea Analytics market analysis lead Rhys Elliott – and Crimson Desert was its most lucrative new IP by far.
Elliott describes Steam as "Valve's functional monopoly on the PC market" in a new Substack post breaking down its 2026 earnings, which are up around 15% from 2025. Actually, Steam appears to be on track for a historic payday; Elliott explains, "The first eight months of this year have already leapfrogged 2023's total. This year will almost certainly end well above $20 billion for the first time."
Our mortal world is pre-GTA 6, a game some hysterical experts predict to sell up to 30 million copies at launch, at $80 a piece, so there was no one game that multiplied Steam's ludicrous amount of cash this year. However, Alinea does identify a couple of major influences, including Forza Horizon 6 (estimated to have made $210.5 million on Steam), Crimson Desert ($203.3 million), and Resident Evil Requiem ($200.9 million). The only other brand new IP to crack Steam's list of top six earners was Meccha Chameleon, which held its own with approximately $89.8 million, but hardly came close to toppling Crimson Desert's unprecedented success.
"But yeah, in total, these six games make up a little under $1B of 2026's Steam gross revenues so far, accounting for about 6.6%," Elliott says. Though, "It's worth noting Crimson Desert, with its $203M, accounts for about 18% of all new-IP revenue in the top 100."
Otherwise, the bulk of Steam's money bags come from what analyst Joost van Dreunen calls mid-market games, which Elliott says mostly includes aging AAA titles like GTA 5, Fallout 4, and Lost Ark, as well as purely "mid-tier" games which are selling well – like Mortal Shell 2 – but can't compare to a mainstream beast like Forza Horizon 6.
"The top 100 of new 2026 games by gross revenues this year is about $2.4B, or about 15.9% of 2026's Steam overall revenues so far," says Elliott. "Of the new-game top 100, 63% were actually new IP, but 52.5% of the revenue ($1.25B) came from established IP." Long live the video game middle class.
Crimson Desert soars past 150,000 Steam reviews with Very Positive rating despite story criticism.
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Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.
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