2025 may have been a mixed bag overall, but as far as videogames are concerned, it was pretty great. If you're a PC gamer, your cup runneth over so much that you may still be catching up on the year's biggest hits even now, and you're not alone. In fact, one industry analysis group reckons Dec. 2025 was Steam's highest-grossing December ever.
That estimation comes courtesy of Alinea Analytics, which reported that last month saw over 100 million Steam users generate $1.6 billion dollars in gross revenue. That would make it the platform's best Christmas month in history. The report explains "that’s up 22.7% over December 2024 and even more than December 2020’s pandemic-driven high of $1.4 billion."
The report also notes that Arc Raiders is the second-biggest breadwinner of the season—the first is eternally Counter-Strike 2, as dictated by the laws of physics—with a staggering 1.2 million copies sold just in the weeks between Dec. 21 and Jan. 4. As the article puts it, "the brakes are broken on the ARC Raiders train," with the game selling 12 million copies overall. 250,000 copies were apparently sold on Boxing Day alone, with almost 3.2 million players checking in and half of them doing so on Steam.
There are plenty of other estimations and insights in the article, but there are two big takeaways from my perspective. Steam seems bigger than ever despite would-be competitors like Epic Games Store and the occasional controversy, and any concerns that the extraction shooter lacked casual appeal have been taken out back and blasted away with a Hullcracker by those crazy kids at Embark.
Steam's continued dominance is no surprise as it's got a bigger user base than Canada. I'm sure there's yet another yacht in Gabe Newell's future.
