Over 6,000 games were released on Steam in 2017, almost as many as all games released 2005-2015

2017 isn't over yet, and Steam is already setting records for the number of games released in a single year.

Since the start of the year, there have been over 6,000 games released on Steam. This data was shared by analyst Daniel Ahmad‏ on Twitter, who also noted that it was taken from early in November.

The number has no doubt risen since then, but what's interesting is that 6,000 games is not only the biggest in Steam history, it's even more than that. 6,000 games is almost as many games released on Steam from 2005 all the way to 2015.

That's staggering, and no doubt has something to do with the launch of Steam Greenlight's replacement, Steam Direct, in June. Direct was designed to make it easier for developers to release games on Steam, but Valve hoped the $100 fee would deter makers of asset flips and other shovelware products.

This does not seem to have worked, as you can still easily find these types of games on Steam. The solution, according to Valve, is by making changes to the way the store surfaces games to users in the first place, ensuring that these games are buried. This multi-step process starts with recommendation algorithms that try to create a taste profile based on the games you played and browsed.

It also extends to Steam Curators, a system that's getting a big update soon to make it more relevant. The Discovery Queue and new filtering options should also come in handy, but we'll still have to wait before all of these systems are rolled out to users before we can truly decide.