Sales record broken for the seventh consecutive year as five million concurrent users use the online digital distribution platform for their PC gaming needs.
There are over 40-million accounts that have been registered for Valve’s service which offers just under two-thousand games to its users. On top of that the latest figure also means that that Steam has managed to double its sales figures for the seventh
year in a row, which is a feat that ought to be commended.
Gabe Newell, who many in the industry will know as the person who is the life and breath of Valve stated, “Steam and Steamworks continues to evolve to keep up with customer and developer demands for new services and content.”
The fact that Valve’s platform has managed to reach the figures they have amidst increased competition in the market should also be noted. Electronic Arts have launched their service, Origin, while Ubisoft have also entered the digital distribution market
as well; meaning Steam does not have the unrivalled monopoly it once did.
Newell continued by throwing a bunch of facts and figures everyone’s way, which he probably hoped would impress everyone. Luckily for him, it did: “Support for in-game item trading prompted the exchange of over 19 million items. Support for Free to Play
(FTP) games, launched in June, has spurred the launch of 18 FTP titles on Steam, with more coming in 2012.”
The last bit of the statement sounded oddly like an advertisement for the service, but after posting the sales figures that Steam has, one would be inclined o let something like that go.
The Valve boss also mentioned some of the new features the service would be introducing this year including a new User Interface which would make Steam more easier to access for multiple users around the same household.
The feature would also allow Steam to be used on larger displays, or as Mr. Newell so aptly put it, “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."
It seems that Steam is going from strength to strength yet this year will be a more potent challenge for the digital distribution platform’s growth as both Origin and Uplay will be looking to gain more market share and adopt a more aggressive marketing approach
in order to break Valve’s monopoly-esque hold.
However, for the time being, Valve can sit back and celebrate the fact that they managed to distribute upwards of 14.5-million copies of games on Steam, earning a fair amount of revenue in the process.
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