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2011 was another successful year for Valve, which announced today that its digital games distribution service Steam enjoyed its seventh year of over 100% sales growth. The announcement follows news of another milestone for the service, which hit a record peak of 5 million concurrent users during its 2011 Holiday Sale.
With over 1,800 games in Steam’s online catalogue and over 40 million user accounts, Valve reports that Steam has double its service infrastructure to meet rising demand from users. Last year, the service delivered 780 petabytes (about 780,000 terabytes) of game data to gamers.
"Steam and Steamworks continues to evolve to keep up with customer and developer demands for new services and content," said Valve president and co-founder Gabe Newell. The long list of popular titles released last year, like Skyrim, Modern Warfare 3, and Deus Ex certainly helped contribute to the service’s success.
Last year also saw the launch of several forward looking features for Steam, including Steam Trading, which allows users to exchange in-game items and gifts and support for 18 free-to-play titles.
Steam’s next big target may be your living room. “Looking forward, we are preparing for the launch of the Big Picture UI mode, which will allow gamers to experience Steam on large displays and in more rooms of the house."” teased Newell.
