Steam hits 17 million concurrent users, with nearly 7 million playing in-game

Valve’s digital distribution service Steam keeps surging in popularity, setting new records for users nearly every month. After hitting 16 million online gamers in October, the lure of Black Friday deals (with an assist from a little game called PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds that you may have heard of) resulted in a new high, with 17,683,804 users signed in simultaneously. According to the tracking data over at SteamDB, the number of online players reached a high of 6,813,617. Those were people actively playing games, rather than just idly browsing through the deals on the site. Of those, nearly half (2,940,359) were enjoying some frenzied multiplayer action in PUBG. The total number of actual Steam users is harder to track, as many have multiple accounts and others have been dormant for years. In 2014, Steam announced that it had reached 75 million users, and then boasted more than 125 million “active” accounts at an event in 2015. Still, it’s hard to deny that Valve’s downloadable games service has become a near-universal platform for PC gaming. According to Steam’s figures from earlier this year, more than 25 million Steam users have gaming rigs that are ready for virtual reality. That figure has nearly doubled since 2016, indicating that widespread adoption of VR as a gaming platform may be right around the corner. As far as the actual games on the service go, the 800-pound gorilla in the room is PUBG at nearly 3 million, Dota 2 comes in second with a peak of 1.2 million, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a distant third with 850k. It’s worth noting that PUBG reached its peak in 2017, while the other two topped out in 2016. As PCGamesN notes, the number of PUBG players is likely to explode well past 3 million once the game releases the new desert map and then expands into Asian markets after the recent deal with Chinese publisher Tangent. Valve has recently made its service more open to indie developers with the Steam Direct project. Gamers can also opt for projects that are still in development with Early Access, providing feedback to the developers and participating in discussions as the game reaches its final iteration. Steam looks to be a juggernaut in PC gaming, at least for the foreseeable future, as it shows no signs of slowing down.
Since its launch, Steam has been one of the go-to platforms for PC gamers, but it just broke its all-time record with more than 40 million people using Steam at one time. That doesn’t mean 40 million people are gaming all at once — that number is a bit over 12 million — but it’s still a massive increase from when Steam first started. At the time of writing, Steam hit its all-time peak within the last two hours with a staggering 40,270,997 people. The majority of people are in the storefront or doing something else that’s not strictly gaming, but there are millions of gamers playing through some of the most popular titles right now. The first of many Steam Next Fests to be held in 2025 is here, which means there are more game demos to try out than anybody has time for. The latest iteration of the PC storefront’s event spotlighting upcoming titles with playable demos runs from February 24 through March 3, but where to start? Early standouts include the absurd Skin Deep and turn-based strategy game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown. These barely scrape the surface of what Next Fest offers. To make things a little easier, here are ten incredible demos to start with if you are feeling lost.
If you are itching for more 3D platforming goodness after last year’s Astro Bot, try out Demon Tides. The cartoonish adventure set in a world of islands and open oceans is a responsive and frenetic platformer with a lot of promise. While the demo doesn’t give us the deepest look into how Demon Tides will expand its story and players only get a taste of the platforming, what is there is solid enough to put this game immediately on my wishlist after playing.