Steam hit a major milestone already this year, setting a new record for concurrent users. According to SteamDB, the platform peaked at 41,816,052 users online at the same time actively playing games. Not only that, but a new record for actively gaming users was also set, with that figure reaching almost 13.4 million as compared to March's 13.2 million record.
The timing of the record is likely no coincidence. Steam's annual Winter Sale, which wraps up later today, offered steep discounts on a wide range of popular titles, along with more modest deals on newer releases. Sales events have long been a reliable driver of traffic on Steam, pulling in both longtime users and players returning to pick up games they missed throughout the year.
Steam's growth has been steady for well over a decade, but it has accelerated sharply in recent years. A notable spike occurred in early 2020, when COVID-19 lockdowns pushed concurrent users past 23 million, later climbing to 28 million just a couple of years later. The company even offered a bundle of games, which went to COVID relief at the time. Since then, the rise of live-service games and consistently strong seasonal sales have helped keep players logged in, especially during holidays. Games like Arc Riders continue to grow, hitting over 3 million concurrent players this week.
While Steam reached this new peak after nearly 17 years of expansion, the pace of growth has been especially fast over the past six years, with peak user counts nearly doubling in that time. The achievement comes during a mixed period for Valve, which has faced criticism over inconsistent content moderation and censorship decisions.
It'll be interesting to see how these numbers change once the Steam Machine comes into play later this year.
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The timing of the record is likely no coincidence. Steam's annual Winter Sale, which wraps up later today, offered steep discounts on a wide range of popular titles, along with more modest deals on newer releases. Sales events have long been a reliable driver of traffic on Steam, pulling in both longtime users and players returning to pick up games they missed throughout the year.
Steam's growth has been steady for well over a decade, but it has accelerated sharply in recent years. A notable spike occurred in early 2020, when COVID-19 lockdowns pushed concurrent users past 23 million, later climbing to 28 million just a couple of years later. The company even offered a bundle of games, which went to COVID relief at the time. Since then, the rise of live-service games and consistently strong seasonal sales have helped keep players logged in, especially during holidays. Games like Arc Riders continue to grow, hitting over 3 million concurrent players this week.
While Steam reached this new peak after nearly 17 years of expansion, the pace of growth has been especially fast over the past six years, with peak user counts nearly doubling in that time. The achievement comes during a mixed period for Valve, which has faced criticism over inconsistent content moderation and censorship decisions.
It'll be interesting to see how these numbers change once the Steam Machine comes into play later this year.
Source