If you’re reading this news post right now, then chances are you were part of making history this weekend. It’s no secret that Steam is one of the most popular game storefronts, but now, it’s record-breaking. This past weekend Valve’s PC-exclusive platform logged over 30 million active users who were all online simultaneously.
A truly staggering number if you consider that the entire population of South Africa sits at 59 million – meaning Steam had half of the entire country’s population online at one time. This number also shows massive growth for the platform, considering that in January of 2021, Steam set its first record of 25 million active users. It’s also worth noting that not all of these users were necessarily playing games, although they were logged in to the platform.
Steam’s numbers have been actively growing since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022. Given the rising competition with Epic Game Store and Xbox Game Pass on PC, it’s no small feat for the company to celebrate its 20th anniversary next year.
Browsing through Steam’s new overhauled stats page allows for a more detailed breakdown of these numbers. For instance, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was the most played game, with over 1.05 million players, followed by Dota 2, with over 750 million players and PUBG: Battlegrounds, with over 440 million players.