Steam over the weekend achieved a new record for concurrent users at over eight million. That eclipses the previous record of around 7.5 million set during last year's holiday season according to a post originating from NeoGAF.
The new record was set on June 29 at around noon which just so happens to coincide with the Steam Summer Sale Encore Day. If you recall, Steam's annual Summer Sale kicked off on June 19 and has been offering up deep discounts on some of the hottest games in the industry ever since.
The most popular game on Steam right now is by far Dota 2 with more than four and a half times as many players as the next most popular title, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. As of writing, Dota 2 peaked at 775,279 concurrent players today while Counter-Strike has only managed 163,421 thus far.
Rounding out the top five games by player count is Team Fortress 2 with 78,227 peak players, Garry's Mod at 66,371 and PAYDAY 2 at 63,814 peak players today.
Back during Valve's Dev Days in January, the company revealed they had 75 million active users , a solid increase over the 65 million reported in October 2013.
Given Steam's overwhelming popularity these days, it's difficult to imagine a time when the service wasn't loved by gamers. But that did indeed happen in the early days as gamers lashed out against the platform's constant patches, DRM policies and digital-only approach to PC games.