Valve has made several improvements to the Steam platform for players, developers and publishers.The scale of these changes is reflected in a post summarizing the development of the platform in 2024.
Valve reviews Steam’s success in 2024, a year that has undergone many changes and improvements to this leading digital game distribution platform.
Valve divides the content of its latest posts into three categories: improvements to users and developers, and data on the current status of the platform.Recent achievements have taken into account user activity, and users have refreshed Steam records many times. The most recent time was this year, involving 40 million game accounts.
The post mentioned that 2024 was the best year for new games, with revenues increasing 10 times since 2014, significantly exceeding previous years’ results (the “revenue from newly released games” here refers to the total revenue in the first 30 days after being released on Steam).More than 500 games have revenues of more than $250,000, an increase of 27% over 2022.
Valve also paid attention to the global nature of the platform and how many newly released games have achieved great success.This includes the success of a studio from Malaysia, where users in this country generate only 0.5% of global traffic.
Improvements made for players...
Despite this, most of Valve's posts are reminding ordinary users, developers, and publishers who publish games on Steam and the changes made by the platform.Of course, some improvements are helpful to both players and developers.For example, the changes to the trial version fixed the common but misleading "prologue" problem on the one hand, and on the other hand, it made the trial version more eye-catching on Steam and better displayed.
Valve also mentioned Steam New Product Festivals and themed promotions, some organized by individual publishers and some revolve around specific game types.These events, hosted by Valve, are believed to be one of the reasons that more and more developers make trial versions, although it seems that the trial version is on the verge of disappearing for years.
Steam users will also enjoy the benefits of some other changes, such as new cart and private gaming features, workshop changes, improvements to home sharing features, better review sorting and game descriptions, and game recording options.In addition, there are new features, such as distinguishing achievements from DLC (contentable), and new information about early access – Early access is a new paid mode that players can play in advance a few days before the game is released globally.
…and the improvements made for developers in the coming year
In addition to the above changes, developers and publishers have also enjoyed many improvements on the Steam platform.The option to set longer-term discounts for game releases, enhancements related to practical daily offers, and a new game card editor are just some of the new features designed to make it easier for developers to work.In addition, there are some new features related to VR games and Steam Deck handheld consoles.
Valve also mentioned a detailed document that responded to many potential issues and explained changes to cater to German players (a previous German legal change that caused the game without age ratings to be released).
Of course, that's not all.In the first quarter of 2025, Valve introduced several changes, including banning games from forcing players to watch ads, and providing information on whether the Early Access game is still in development.However, this feature may be detrimental to developers who actively develop games.The company intends to continue listening to players and developers – after all, many of the improvements on Steam in recent years have benefited from their feedback.
