8 articles
Steam's first half of 2026 didn't just break records. It outpaced the holiday season. An estimated $11.1 billion in gross revenue, driven by Chinese players, legacy catalogues, and a few monster launches.
After years of adding warnings, limiting redemption, and pulling cards from shelves during suspicious activity spikes, Valve says scammers have adapted to every countermeasure. Physical Steam gift cards are done.
Valve's latest Steam Beta update squashes a Steam Controller bug in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, alongside overlay and Remote Play fixes.
Japanese indie horror visual novel This Game Is Not Real has been pulled from Steam after Valve ruled it didn't meet platform criteria, despite 24,000 wishlists and months of community anticipation.
Valve generated over 27 million unique images just to backfill existing Counter-Strike listings as part of a sweeping Community Market redesign now in beta.
Japanese solo developer Daikichi has been blocked from releasing a demo on Steam because Valve flagged a board game asset as third-party IP. The board game is also made by Daikichi.
A second wave of Disney delistings hit Steam this week, pulling 15 more games including the original Star Wars: Dark Forces and Outlaws. That brings the 2026 total to 29 titles quietly erased from the storefront.
Valve's GDC numbers quietly dismantle the indie saturation panic: nearly 6,000 games cleared $100K on Steam last year, double the count from five years ago.