Steam has set a concurrent user record yet once more, just under a month after having done so last time. One of the oldest and most popular video game marketplaces and launchers on PC, Valve's gaming platform is a mainstay on most gamers' desktops, hosting an extremely wide variety of titles from publishers from the entire spectrum of the industry.
That's not to say, of course, that Steam doesn't have viable competitors. A number of publishers have kickstarted their own gaming services over the decade or so, the most prominent being the Epic Games Store and GOG. Still, Steam successfully commands a substantial slice of the market, and its latest roundup of historical user records corroborates as much, too.
According to SteamDB, Steam had a whopping 31,906,400 concurrent users on Sunday, November 27. This is a sizable increase from Steam's previous concurrent user record, which counted 30,049,264 users in total. Steam itself reports that there were 31,968,428 users active at once, which could feasibly be considered a margin of error between the two sets of data. Naturally, it's important to note that this doesn't mean there were over 30 million users playing video games on Steam at the same time, just that there were that many users logged into the service simultaneously. SteamDB estimates that, of that number, approximately 9.4 million people were actively playing a game or using the Steam client. Still an incredibly impressive statistic, regardless.
The notion that Valve's gaming client has only grown more popular and relevant over time is underlined further by the fact that Ubisoft plans to come back to Steam after years of sticking mainly to its own gaming client, Ubisoft Connect (formerly known as UPlay). This mirrors Electronic Arts' own approach to newer releases, where titles launch on Steam and feature a lightweight version of the EA App to run alongside it.
It stands to reason that Steam's often incredible sales are a notable draw for users. Gamers could, for example, get the Valve Complete Pack at the Steam Autumn Sale, which featured almost two dozen of Valve's finest releases, for just under $7. Such discounts are relatively commonplace, and though other marketplaces have tried to emulate these offers and even succeeded at beating them in some instances, Steam remains the most popular gaming client on PC.
With Steam Decks rapidly shipping at last, Valve has succeeded in delivering a piece of mainstream gaming hardware as well. Though the company made previous forays into gaming hardware and VR solutions, specifically, the Deck is its most popular gadget yet. With Valve silently prototyping a new VR system in the background, it's clear that the company is likely to grow even more popular in the future.
Source: SteamDB