well considering that codblops has been in the top 10 sellers on steam pretty much since it launched outside of christmass sales... I imagine it sold a hell of a lot on steam

Some of this is likely wrong, but I'd say it seems about spot on that COD BLOPS total PC sales are around 2 million units (being Steam only represents 70% of the DD market on PC according to the most recent analysis info, and counting retail). The games after that I do find questionable in some instances.

I love Steam, but we have to consider that recently Magicka made it to the number 1 selling game on the service its' first day while only pulling in ~30K. I think Steam is big, but I question whether it's the juggernaut that many propose it to be.

in EU retail is still 20X cheaper than steam outside of sale periodes... all my newer software I get retail, I wouldn't discount retail that much for worldwide numbers...

Especially with online retailers of boxed games like Amazon and Play. I usually find PC games are both in stock and significantly cheaper than other retailers and Steam.

Magicka was released on a weekday. It's on weekends that more people play, buy and are logged on Steam. There's also over 1000 games being sold on Steam, and if 1 game alone can make $250k a day, that bodes really well for Steam.

Also, PC gamers aren't as frontloaded in buying as console gamers, which means that PC games keep selling for years, no matter how slow. You think people have stopped buying Garry's Mod because it's not even on Steam's Top 20 sellers?! Wrong: http://news.bigdownload.com/2011/01/23/garrys-mod-sales-continue-to-increase-year-over-year/

"However the mod continues to sell well as posted by Newman himself in a recent blog post. Back in late October he admitted the game has sold over 770,000 copies since it was first released. In his new blog post Newman states that sales of the game went up by 30 percent in 2008 following the game's first full year of sales in 2007. In 2009 sales increased again by 31 percent and in 2010 sales went up yet again by 33 percent. Yes, that means that despite being available for four years sales of Garry's Mod have increased nearly 100 percent since it was first launched."

Garry's Mod sales kept increasing every year, even though it continued to decline on Steam's Top charts.

1 billion dollars is very amazing even though it's a single DD service for the PC.

Imagine how much more they can rake in once they can their service through for 360 and PS3?

No offense but..why would valve purposely hide the real numbers?

Shouldn't it be good news for the PC gaming industry developers and everyone else to know that DD is the future for pc gaming?

I don't believe those numbers, sorry. It's easy to understand why VGC numbers can be believable, but not FADE's.

A couple of possible reasons. Firstly, they're a privately owned company, so unlike Plcs and corporations like Sony, Microsoft, Activision, Nintendo etc. they have no need to release sales or revenue figures.

Secondly, if their digital distribution method is successful, they don't neccessarily want everyone to know. If they start announcing huge sales figures and revenue then physical retailers may refuse to stock their games. In fact, physical retailers have already threatened stop stocking games that require Steam. The other issue is that it basically says to larger companies in the industry "digital distribution is a money maker!" and they may form their own systems and increase direct competition to Steam.

...Its because most distributors can't.

Sales data are protected by NDAs between the publisher, the platform, and the distributor. Therefore, Valve would have to break over 200 NDA's signed by the various publishers in order to give out any sort of sales data. The individual publishers/developers can, and sometimes do, but if Valve does it, it would invite lawsuits that Valve doesn't need.