Valve has reportedly made £11bn from Steam already in 2026, and biggest earning new arrival is Forza Horizon 6

In 2026, Valve experienced a successful year for its PC storefront, Steam, according to new analysis. The platform generated an estimated $15 billion (£11.10 billion) in revenue, with Valve taking a share of the profits from game sales, downloadable content, and software. Among the top-performing new game releases on Steam, Forza Horizon 6 led the pack, contributing an estimated $210.5 million (£155.74 million) in revenue to Valve.

The open-world racing game was closely followed by Crimson Desert, which generated $203.3 million (£150.42 million) in revenue for Valve. Resident Evil Requiem and Crimson Desert rounded out the top three, collectively bringing in $200.9 million (£148.64 million) in revenue for Valve. Analyst Rhys Elliott noted that the top six highest-grossing new releases on Steam accounted for only $1 billion (£735.8 million) of the $15 billion, or just 6.6 percent of Valve's earnings.

Interestingly, two of the top six games, Crimson Desert and Meccha Chameleon, were new intellectual properties (IPs). When expanding the scope to include the top 100 highest-grossing new releases in 2026, the total revenue grew to $2.4 billion (£1.78 billion), representing 15.9 percent of Steam's overall revenue so far. However, the data was somewhat skewed, as Crimson Desert accounted for 18 percent ($203 million) of the new IP revenue due to its immense success.

Removing Crimson Desert from the equation reduced the new IP revenue share to 39 percent. There were still several highly-anticipated releases yet to be released in 2026, including Onimusha: Way of the Sword, The Blood of Dawnwalker, Gears of War: E-Day, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, and Phantom Blade Zero.