Steam has achieved a lot over the past 17 years. From growing into the most prominent pc gaming client on the market to hosting thousands of different titles, it’ll take a lot to knock Steam from the PC throne. As of January this year, Steam has managed to achieve another accolade. The company hit a record number of simultaneous service users.
According to Steam’s statistics, the client reached 26,401,443 concurrent users, all logged-in simultaneously. While it’s worth mentioning that only 7.3 million of these users were actually playing games, it’s impressive none the less. The Steam record for the most amount of users playing games at the once was reached back in March. with a whopping 8.1 million players (via PC Gamer).
Why has This Steam Record Been Broken?
These impressive figures could be the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has meant a whole lot of staying indoors. Alternatively, the client could be seeing more visitors due to the scarcity of PS5 stock. Some players are switching to PC as an alternative means of play. Of course, many of these players have been playing on Steam for years. The likes of Counter-Strike and DOTA 2 reach over 1.5 million concurrent players alone.
It’s full Steam ahead for Valve’s client, and the company appears to get bigger by the year. In a year in review post, Steam commented on its success during 2020:
“While Steam was already seeing significant growth in 2020 before COVID-19 lockdowns, video game playtime surged when people started staying home, dramatically increasing the number of customers buying and playing games, and hopefully bringing some joy to counter-balance some of the craziness that was 2020”
As humble as this statement is, Valve knows that Steam is a PC powerhouse. If it plays its cards right, the company can permanently stay on top of the competition.
Shop With GameByte!
Don’t forget you can find some of these great games and more through the new GameByte Shop! The GameByte Shop is stocked up with the latest games, merch and accessories. We might even have a new-gen console or two! Sign up to our newsletter to be notified of our console drops. Please note the GameByte Shop is available for UK customers only.
Featured Image Credit: Valve