Every year, the gaming industry continues to grow rapidly. According to SteamDB, in 2024, Steam saw 18,949 new games, which is a 33% increase compared to the previous year. This was noted by the GameDev community on DOU.
Steam has greatly contributed to the growth of the independent gaming industry. In 2012, only 312 new games were released on the platform within a year. That same year, the Steam Greenlight program was launched. By 2018, the number of new games per year had already reached 8,883.
Over the past 15 years, the number of games released annually on Steam has increased by as much as 5,000%. Therefore, the contribution of Gabe Newell and Valve to the gaming industry is undeniably monumental.