Steam now has 30,000 games

Quietly, softly, some time in the past few weeks, Steam has reached a grand total of over 30,000 games. That sum is just games, mind you, and doesn’t include software, DLC, or videos (That total is about 21,000 more things.) That’s one game for every inhabitant of Kent, Ohio; Hatfield, Hertfordshire; or Dubbo, New South Wales. It’s not an immediately relevant milestone, but it is noteworthy just how much of that total came from releases in the last year or two. According to Steamspy about 9,300 games released in 2018, while about 6,700 released in 2017. That means that over half, roughly 53% of the games on Steam, came out in the two years since the advent of Steam Direct.

Whether growth will continue is hard to know, but it’s probably worth noting that the iOS App Store peaked at half a million games in 2016 and has steadily declined since then.

Curious to know more about the history of Steam? Here’s a visual history.

If growth continues apace, though there’s absolutely no way to know if it will, we can conservatively expect over 10,000 games to release on Steam this year. So, at least, expect one Steam game for every inhabitant of Liechtenstein by the end of 2019.

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Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.