Valve just dropped its Steam Year in Review 2025 on the Steamworks developer blog, and even though it’s “for developers,” it’s honestly one of the best snapshots of where PC gaming is heading. In this video I break down the three big buckets Valve focused on last year: hardware, the Steam store, and developer tools—and seeing it all in one place makes Steam’s long-term direction feel really clear. Also, the scale is kind of insane: Steam hit 42 million concurrent users in 2025, and Valve says Steam delivered 100 exabytes of downloads—about 190,000 GB every minute. On the hardware side, I go through how Valve’s long learning arc (Steam Controller, Link, Index, Steam Deck) is now paying off with a bigger ecosystem push: a redesigned Steam Controller built around Steam Input, a “return” of the Steam Machine (now viable thanks to Proton + SteamOS), and the Steam Frame VR headset concept. SteamOS also shipped as the default OS on a non-Valve device (Lenovo Legion Go OS), which is a big signal that Valve wants SteamOS beyond just the Deck. Then I cover the store improvements like better Discovery Queue context, the personal calendar, accessibility filters, wide store layout, rebuilt trailer playback, language-specific review scores, and smarter bundle suggestions. Finally, I touch on the developer tools—especially Steam events at massive scale and new reporting APIs—plus the new in-game performance monitor that can help optimize games for devices like the Steam Deck.