Valve reveals Steam's 2016 best sellers, and most are on sale now

In a surprise announcement today to kick off 2017, Valve has revealed the 100 best-selling Steam games of 2016. As an extension of the Winter Sale, all but six of these games are on sale.

Although the "Top Sellers" section of Steam gives a constant sense of what's selling now, Valve hasn't previously compiled an annual list of which Steam games earned the most money. The list provides some rare, hard insight into which games, including free-to-play games, performed best this year.

It's imperfect information, however. Rather than ranked in order from 1-100, the list is separated into tiers, from Platinum to Bronze, based on revenue (as opposed to copies sold). I'm not going to list each game here, but there were a few surprises that stood out to me:

• The Division was one of the 12 best sellers of the year
• Rainbow Six Siege and Warframe are both in the top 24
• Doom didn't crack the top 12, but it may have gotten close: it's ranked somewhere between 13th and 24th
• Despite uncertain reports about its sales, Watch Dogs 2 was one of the 25th-40th best selling games on Steam
• As was The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited
• Far Cry Primal, which we felt was quickly forgotten, also cracked the 25-40 tier
• Older games that stuck around in the Bronze (41-100) tier: Left 4 Dead 2, Borderlands 2 (and The Pre-Sequel), Garry's Mod, Kerbal Space Program, The Sims 3, Dishonored

Almost all of these games are between 10-75% off. Valve didn't announce when this sale is ending, but my guess is that it'll conclude either tomorrow (as the Steam Winter Sale ends) or later in the week.

The games that are at their highest level of discount include:

• Ark: Survival Evolved ($12, 60% off)
• Dark Souls 3 ($30, 50% off)
• Subnautica ($10, 50% off)
• Kerbal Space Program ($13.59, 66% off)