On February 2nd, Steam crushed its own record for most concurrent users by close to 300,000. The previous record of 18,537,490 concurrent users, set over two years ago on January 6th, 2018, was toppled by the even more massive numbers seen on the 2nd, which peaked at 18,801,944 users.
Interestingly enough, despite the increase in overall users on the platform, the number of players in-game at the time dropped by about 1.2 million. The previous record had about 7,000,000 users in-game at the same time, while the most recent record only had around 5,800,000.
Steam originally started September 12th, 2003 as a relatively simple client for Valve to distribute and update its games. The current service is a far cry from its roots, now offering the ability to livestream, host large social networks, marketplaces, and of course, tens of thousands of games from a whole host of developers large and small. The outstanding numbers that Steam now showcases is truly a testament to the service's impressive growth over its long, continuing history. It's now widely speculated that the platform itself makes Valve more profit than the company's games the service was initially created to distribute.
Steam's previous record for most concurrent users was notably set during the height of Player Unknown's Battlegrounds, which at the moment, holds the record for most concurrent players on Steam. Likely, this a contributing factor on the previous highest number of both users and in-game players.
As for the current record, it was set at around 14:00 UTC, which is Steam's usual peak time for usage. Additionally, February 2nd was a Sunday, which as part of the weekend, is consistently when the highest number of Steam's user base is available and therefore online using the service. Though their potential effects, if any, are unknown, other unusual factors about the day included that February 2nd was Super Bowl Sunday, as well as Groundhog Day in the United States and Canada.
Though raw numbers can never tell the full story, Steam's new record for concurrent users appears to show positive growth for the service. Despite seeing the recent rise of potentially Steam's most powerful and aggressive competition in the form of the Epic Games Store, Valve's near monopolistic game store seems to be moving ahead unhampered.
Source: PC Gamer