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Is Steam bigger than the Beatles, or Jesus, for that matter? I’m not qualified to answer that, but Valve’s ubiquitous PC gaming platform is definitely bigger than Uzbekistan. As spotted by Blue’s News, Steam surged past 40 million concurrent users for the very first time today. Steam broke the 39 million concurrents barrier back in December.
Steam’s new high water mark is slightly different depending on who you ask. Valve’s own charts list it as 40,273,982 users, while SteamDB pegs it at 40,270,997. Even with this slight discrepancy, both authoritative sources show Valve crossing the 40 million mark. On this day 10 years ago, Steam clocked in at 8.9 million concurrent users and already felt like an inextricable part of PC gaming.
Back to the countries comparison, Steam’s 40.27 million concurrents this morning would constitute the 38th-biggest in the United Nations, just behind Canada’s 41 million, and smoking Uzbekistan’s 37 million person population. For a more zoomed-out view of Steam’s user base, we have to go back to Steamworks’ 2021 year-in-review—not to be confused with the Spotify Wrapped-style breakdown of individual player stats Valve has started offering. Valve reported 132 million active monthly players (that is, they used Steam within the month, as opposed to being logged in at exact the same time) at the end of 2021, with a peak concurrent record of 27.4 million at the time.
This isn’t scientific, but if the same ratio of active monthly to peak concurrent users held through to today, back of the napkin math would put Steam’s current active monthly users at 221.5 million, more people than live in Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Japan, or the United Kingdom.
This is another handy example of the health and growth of PC gaming, particularly compared to the relative stagnation in the console sector. Valve’s sheer influence in the industry is only more shocking when you consider the size of the company: 336 employees in 2021, smaller than many triple-A developers, let alone major multinational publishers like EA and Ubisoft which failed to make a dent in the digital storefront arena.
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Kurt Indovina
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