Steam made more than $3.5 billion from video game sales last year

With more active users than both the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live, Steam is the most-popular digital distribution platform for video games in the world, with next to nothing in the way of competition. The platform’s dominance over the market is such that Steam Spy has reported that more than $3.5 billion in video games were sold through Steam last year, and that number doesn’t even include downloadable content or free-to-play games with micro-transactions.  Considering how Valve takes a slice of every game sold, and directly owns some of the most-popular games on Steam, it’s safe to say the company has a few bucks to spare at the moment.

The independent stat tracker Steam Spy has revealed some sales info for Steam’s 2015 game sales. The paid games market, not including DLC or free-to-play games, is estimated at $3.5 billion on Steam alone. The two biggest months for Steam this year were December, thanks to the winter steam sale, and April, thanks to Grand Theft Auto V‘s PC release. A few interesting tidbits came out of Steam Spy’s analysis. It broke out sales and copies sold separately, giving us a good idea of how popular games are separately from how much money they make. Grand Theft Auto V and Fallout 4 top both lists, but it shifts pretty wildly from there. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt round out the top 5 most profitable games, while the other three best sellers after the top 2 were dinosaur sim ARK: Survival Evolved, Rocket League, and H1Z1. Once Grand Theft Auto V hit the scene, it didn’t (and still hasn’t!) left the top 5 best sellers list. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt spent most of the year in the top 10, with the incredibly release-heavy month of October being the only notable omission.