Steam hits a new record of over 34 million concurrent users

[DragonSlayer101]

What just happened? Steam broke its own record for the highest number of concurrent players over the weekend when more than 34 million users logged onto the platform simultaneously. The new benchmark broke Steam's former largest figure, set in January 2024, when the digital storefront reported over 33 million concurrent users.

The numbers come from SteamDB, which claims that 11,146,564 users out of 34,649,583 were actively playing a game when the record was set on Sunday. The title that contributed the most number of players during the record period was Valve's free-to-play shooter, Counter-Strike 2, which registered 1.4 million concurrents.

Another free Valve game, DOTA 2, came in at number two with more than 727,000 players in the last 24 hours. PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS with more than 638,000 players, Apex Legends with over 454,000 players, and Helldivers 2 with 431,000+ players rounded out the top five.

Some of the other games that also contributed handsomely to the record include popular titles like GTA V, Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, and Baldur's Gate 3, all of which had more than 100,000 concurrent players. The wildly popular Pokémon-style survival RPG Palworld, which sold 6 million copies within the first six days of its release, was another major contributor to the record, with more than 250,000 players.

Steam has long been the default go-to digital storefront for PC gamers, but its concurrent user base started climbing exactly four years ago in March 2020 when the pandemic-induced lockdowns ensured that a large number of people had enough free time to spend hours playing video games. While the record for February 2020 was 19.1 million concurrent players, the number spiked to 23.6 million the following month, thanks at least in part to the global lockdowns.

The rest of this year is expected to be even more exciting for Steam users, with a number of much-awaited titles set to hit the platform. The list includes the first-person shooter survival horror game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl, which will be the first game in the franchise since the release of Call of Pripyat in 2009. Some of the other titles that are expected to hit Steam in the coming months include the likes of Homeworld 3, Hades II, Manor Lords, Stormgate, and more.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/102115-steam-hit-new-record-over-34-million-concurrent.html

 

[Beerfloat]

And according to the latest Steam survey, at least 6 were using an AMD GPU

 

[Theinsanegamer]

PC gaming just makes more sense in the face of $600 consoles with $70+ games and censorship running wild. With PC even with digital distribution I can still control my files. On console tho......

And according to the latest Steam survey, at least 6 were using an AMD GPU

No way! There are dozens of us out there! DOZENS!

 

[erickmendes]

Well every apple user is an apple user as every pc gamer is a steam client...
99% of games are on Steam... Where else could gamers number raise?...

 

[kira setsu]

Makes sense, gaming is actually a cheap hobby that you can do from the safety and comfort of your crib.

meanwhile if you step outside money leaves your wallet like a dog who saw the front door open and you might get shot by who f**kin knows what.

 

[Burty117]

Well every apple user is an apple user as every pc gamer is a steam client...
99% of games are on Steam... Where else could gamers number raise?...

GoG? EGS? Origin? uPlay? Battle.Net?

You’d have thought if any of these stores were seeing increasing player numbers in the millions, they’d be shouting about it. Especially EGS since Epic are (somewhat) trying to position it as a Steam alternative.

 

[themastergoose]

And according to the latest Steam survey, at least 6 were using an AMD GPU

My 6950 XT just cry a little...

 

[Puiu]

GoG? EGS? Origin? uPlay? Battle.Net?

You’d have thought if any of these stores were seeing increasing player numbers in the millions, they’d be shouting about it. Especially EGS since Epic are (somewhat) trying to position it as a Steam alternative.

I won't touch EGS even for free games. What Epic is doing is just cancer. They aren't trying to position themselves as a Steam alternative, they are just trying to kill all other stores (GOG, Humble, etc) with their third party exclusivity deals.

 

[HardReset]

I won't touch EGS even for free games. What Epic is doing is just cancer. They aren't trying to position themselves as a Steam alternative, they are just trying to kill all other stores (GOG, Humble, etc) with their third party exclusivity deals.

I cannot remember single exclusive game on Gog.com. Also Epic is not DRM free that is biggest advantage on gog.com.

 

[Puiu]

I cannot remember single exclusive game on Gog.com. Also Epic is not DRM free that is biggest advantage on gog.com.

I don't think even first party titles are exclusive to GOG (The Witcher comes to mind)

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I won't touch EGS even for free games. What Epic is doing is just cancer. They aren't trying to position themselves as a Steam alternative, they are just trying to kill all other stores (GOG, Humble, etc) with their third party exclusivity deals.

- Yep. If Epic wants to compete with Steam, then compete with Steam by carrying the same games and providing a better client oriented storefront that has Steam's features or release hardware that carries PC gaming forward like the Index or Deck.

Don't lock games away behind exclusivity deals and expect people to flock to your early 2000's style storefront.

 

[lesovers]

34 million as the only way to truely exit Steam is to kill the program threads in Task manager or reboot the computer and the default in "Startup apps" is run Steam after booting.