Just over 10 years ago, Seattle-based developer Valve launched not a game, but a gaming platform. Steam was conceived of as a new kind of network for PC gaming, and soon became its pre-eminent distribution channel. Very quickly the service, which allowed the quick and easy download of new games, was opened up to other developers and publishers. Yesterday Valve announced Steam had added 10 million new accounts since October, taking the platform to 75 million users. Today, it feels like Steam owns PC gaming's tomorrow.

This figure came out of a Valve-hosted event called Steam Dev Days, which is open to developers but not the press. Luckily there's twitter, and so everything interesting is leaking out. The first order of business was the shuttering of Greenlight, Valve's current peer-review system for helping small studios get their games on Steam. “Our goal is to make Greenlight go away,” said Gabe Newell in the welcome address. “Not because it's not useful, but because we're evolving.”

Evolving into what? Removing Greenlight means removing any possible barriers for small studios to get their games on Steam, and Newell went further in telling his audience of developers to take control of how their content is sold and promoted. The obvious comparison is the App Store, but only on the surface. A platform that combines accessibility with an enormous audience, the App Store's current incarnation has the curious problem of forcing Apple to play gatekeeper – if your game isn't in some way promoted, or included in one of the 'collections', it will fail. And what if it deserves to be there but isn't?

Community play

Valve's solution is the Valve solution: community. Steam's future is in evolving its social features to make peer-recommendation and user reviews a central part of the network. If the audience doesn't want to play an active role in managing the store's content? Then Valve and Steam lose. If users are flooded with bad games, then Valve and Steam lose. Vlambeer's Rami Ismail believes this may lead to user-curated storefronts that give the organiser a cut, a future where gamers play as important a role as developers.

However this transition is managed, Steam is Valve's golden goose and the numbers released at Steam Dev Days shows why. In 2011 Steam had 44 million users and saw 323 games released; in 2012 it had 52 million users and 382 new games; in 2013 this was 75 million users and 636 new games. The headline-grabbing number was that 75 million active users – up ten million from October 2013's 65 million, a 15% rise in four months.

Valve also released a geographic breakdown of sales, showing that North America (41%) and Western Europe (40%) make up the lion's share of Steam's business – but its presence is ever-increasing in territories like Russia and Brazil. 2014 will see 14 new currencies supported, from the Yen to the Kroner, as well as allowing monetary exchange between player's Steam wallets. Valve is making it easier for developers to work locally, in a world where digital distribution can take your game almost anywhere.

Fortress Valve

Amid these figures was a brief look at the numbers behind Team Fortress 2, one of Valve's marquee titles. Valve credited the game's growth from 500,000 players to 3 million on communication; that is, peer recommendation. The game remains enormously popular and profitable seven years after release, yet has a development team numbering 15 people and 'no marketing expenditure.' This model has been exceptionally profitable for Valve, although the implication that it's applicable outside of TF2 perhaps needs a pinch of salt.

A minor distraction, though a juicy one, was the Steam Machine – Valve's take on a gaming PC, with its own Linux-based operating system. On show was a radically-redesigned Steam Controller along with confirmation of Steam Machine exclusives. Valve's first-party pad has lost the large central touchscreen of previous public showings, and now has a simple symmetry splitting two sunken trackpads and eight buttons (as well as gorgeous-looking palm grooves). But let's not get too attached; not only did Valve say more changes are on the way, but also that the company is encouraging third-party Steam controllers.

And the headiest trick? VR. It has been known for years that Valve is working on its own VR tech, and judging by the presence of senior Oculus Rift figures at Steam Dev Days is doing so in a spirit of co-operation. But nevermind that: David Hensley, a designer at Tripwire Interactive, got the hype train off to a flying start: “Valve's VR demo at #SteamDevDays felt like being in a lucid dream state and very much like a holo deck #mindblown.”

Hensley also made the comparison to Oculus Rift, saying that Valve's VR device offered a higher resolution, less latency and accurate head/positional tracking:

The gaming industry lives and breathes hyperbole, so it can sometimes be hard to spot what's really important. Amid the numbers and the holo decks, something as simple as Steam becoming an open marketplace where anyone can sell software has the potential to change PC gaming forever. Combine this with Steam Machines and it's easy to think you see the outline of a grander strategy: a pincer movement that overwhelms not just the PC gaming market, but the mainstream's perception of what PC gaming offers.

A false opposition is often set up between Microsoft and Valve. You can see why: Microsoft is something of a corporate hate figure among PC gamers, whereas Valve is regarded as somewhat akin to the second coming. It's a fallacious comparison, not least because they are not competing in the same areas, but Steam Dev Days showed the difference between the companies quite beautifully. Microsoft is all about top-down control – locking the user into systems where daddy knows best. The wisdom of the crowd is, in this world, a meaningless buzzphrase. Valve is staking the company's future on it.