It has been a monumental year for PC gaming, and if you feel like your digital library is overflowing, the data now backs you up. Despite a turbulent 2025 for many industries, Valve’s platform has ended the year on a record-breaking high.
According to the latest report from Alinea Analytics, December 2025 was officially the highest-grossing month in Steam’s history.
Steam Smashes Revenue Records
The figures released by Alinea Analytics are nothing short of staggering. The platform saw over 100 million active users generate a massive $1.6 billion in gross revenue last month. To put that into perspective, that is a 22.7% increase over December 2024.
Perhaps more impressively, it even surpassed the previous “pandemic peak” of December 2020, which saw $1.4 billion in revenue when everyone was stuck indoors. It appears that the appetite for PC gaming is only growing, with Steam’s user base is now larger than the population of Canada.
ARC Raiders Takes the Crown
While Counter-Strike 2 continues to dominate the top spot as a permanent fixture of PC gaming, the real story of the season is ARC Raiders. The extraction shooter from Embark Studios has proven that the genre has massive mainstream appeal despite not being a free-to-play game.
Key Performance Stats:
- Total Sales: 12 million copies sold to date.
- Holiday Rush: 1.2 million copies sold between 21 December and 4 January.
- Boxing Day Boom: 250,000 copies sold in a single day (26 December).
- Player Count: Nearly 3.2 million players checked in over the period, with half of those playing via Steam.
As the report puts it, “the brakes are broken on the ARC Raiders train.” Any doubts about whether players were ready for a new high-stakes extraction shooter have been firmly put to rest.
Tell Me More
The data suggests that despite the presence of the Epic Games Store and various industry controversies, Steam remains the undisputed king of PC distribution. The sheer volume of sales during the “Winter Sale” period indicates that the platform’s ecosystem is more robust than ever.
For Embark Studios, the success of ARC Raiders is a huge win. Using the “Hullcracker” to blast away concerns regarding casual appeal, they have managed to capture a massive audience in a very competitive window.
What We Think
It is great to see parts of the PC market thriving. Steam continues to be the gold standard for many of us, and seeing a title like ARC Raiders succeed shows that there is still plenty of room for new, high-quality intellectual properties to break through the noise. Gabe Newell might need to start looking at a bigger dock for that inevitable new yacht.
Where to Buy
You can find the record-breaking hits and the latest deals directly on the Steam Store. ARC Raiders is available now for those looking to jump into the latest extraction shooter craze.
