Steam hits a new all-time peak of 30 million concurrent online users
On the 23rd of October, SteamDB, a site which gathers Steam analytics, reported a new all-time peak of concurrent online users of 30,032,005. Since Valve first launched the Steam platform back in 2003, the service has shown steady growth which began to increase more exponentially once the platform reached 10 million users in 2015 (see graph below). By 2020 Steam had doubled its user base to 20 million and gained an additional 10 million just 2 years later.
https://steamdb.info/graph/?sort=peak
A key factor in the exponential growth of the platform from 2015 is likely due to relatively high-end gaming PCs becoming more affordable and accessible over the last 10 years, with PC gaming becoming a more flexible alternative to console gaming. The Steam platform was also providing an incredibly wide variety of games from low budget and low cost indie games, to the newest AAA titles developed by the industry giants.
https://steamdb.info/graph/?sort=peak
The pandemic can also take a bit of the credit for the huge user increase over the last 2 years. Covid lockdowns in many countries forced a lot of people to spend more time online at home, and with Steam being the default PC gaming marketplace, it became the go to place for many to have fun and interact with friends remotely.
The following lists the top 10 Steam games that had the highest all-time peak players:
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS - 3,257,248
Lost Ark - 1,325,305
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - 1,308,963
Dota 2 - 1,295,114
Cyberpunk 2077 - 1,054,388
ELDEN RING - 953,426
New World - 913,634
Apex Legends - 511,676
Valheim - 502,387
Terraria - 489,886
https://steamdb.info/graph/?sort=peak