Steam has reached a new milestone by exceeding 40 million concurrent users for the first time in its history.
According to SteamDB's charts, the exact peak hit 40,270,997 simultaneous users, with 12.6 million of those users actively in-game.
What's really impressive is that Steam only reached 30 million concurrent users in late 2022, so they've added another 10 million in less than two years!
Monster Hunter Wilds deserves some serious credit for helping push Steam over the edge. The game's launch was a massive hit, quickly becoming one of Steam's top five most-played games of all time. Looks like all those hunters logging in at once gave Steam the boost it needed to break the 40 million barrier!
However, Monster Hunter wasn't alone in driving Steam's recent success. Marvel Rivals and Path of Exile 2, both released at the end of the year, proved highly successful and helped break the previous 39 million concurrent user record.
Meanwhile, classics like PUBG, CS2, and GTA 5 have seen a resurgence due to major updates, with GTA 5 particularly benefiting from the growing hype around GTA 6.
Steam's journey started back in 2003 when Valve created it to distribute games like Half-Life 2. Since then, it's grown into the go-to platform for PC gaming, with countless third-party publishers joining the service.
A big reason for Steam's ongoing success? Many gamers feel Valve makes consumer-friendly choices in an industry that often doesn't. Plus, after building up game libraries on Steam for years, many players don't want to switch to something else.
Even with competitors like Epic Games Store offering free games, Steam keeps growing. The numbers don't lie - that upward trend in users shows no signs of slowing down:
December 8, 2024: Steam hit 39,205,447 concurrent users, with 12,090,313 in-game, driven by major releases like Marvel Rivals and Path of Exile 2.
August 2024: The launch of Black Myth: Wukong propelled Steam to 37.2 million concurrent users, with the game itself achieving 2.4 million concurrent players—making it one of the highest peaks for a single-player game on the platform.
March 2024: Steam recorded 34,649,583 concurrent users, with 11,146,564 in-game, breaking the previous record of 34.2 million set just a day earlier.
January 2022: Steam peaked at 28,230,853 concurrent users, a record that highlighted the platform’s post-holiday surge.
Steam’s concurrent user counts began spiking significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, it surpassed 20 million concurrent users for the first time, with records climbing steadily thereafter.
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