With the novel coronavirus now being considered a pandemic, more and more people are being sent to work or study from home. While it has been assumed that a lof of these self-isolated and quarantined individuals will be playing video games to pass the time, tangible evidence of this isn't common. Now, however, there's a great example. Steam has reportedly set an all-time record for the platform. On Saturday morning, Steam crossed its previous record for the most concurrent users online.
Steam's new record peak for concurrent users is now, reportedly, 19,728, 294users. This is apparently nearly 400,000 more users than the previous record. To be fair, the previous record isn't particularly old. It comes from February, Steam's best month in a long time. Prior to the 2020 surge starting in February, Steam's best month was February 2018. Since then, Steam's been bouncing around 15 and 17 million concurrent users before a big 2020 climb.
Note that while Steam's concurrent users have climbed dramatically, its concurrent in-game players haven't necessarily grown to match. The peak Saturday morning for in-game users was 6.27 million players. The previous record, from February 2018, was just under 7.2 million. The coronavirus may have more people at home with their computer on and Steam logged in, but they're not necessarily playing games.
Top games during the peak were many of Steam's usual suspects. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive topped the list with over 1,000,000 players. That's a record for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, making it just the fourth game on Steam to ever have a million concurrent players or more. Beyond Counter-Strike it's Dota 2 and PUGB with around 700,000 and 500,000 respectively. Then behind them are Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege and Grand Theft Auto 5. Multiplayer games are saving the day.
The numbers aren't surprising in context. The rise since February is likely due to several countries and regions in Asia and Europe responding to the pandemic with quarantines, school cancellations, and the like. The numbers are even likely to continue to climb as the USA begins ramping up testing. States are already canceling school or stopping work across several industries. It seems inevitable that it will continue. Luckily, Steam is there to keep folk distracted if they need it, even as other gaming events like E3 2020 get postponed.