Steam’s peak concurrent users increased by 10 million in two years

Steam has now set a new user record; there were 28.2 million concurrent users in the past weekend. Exactly two years ago, there were ten million fewer users simultaneously online on the game platform.

The current peak of over 28.2 million concurrent players is a new record, as reports the Twitter account SteamDB† The number is also listed in the SteamDB database. The previous record was set a week ago. At that time there were almost 28 million players and last November the number was 27.3 million concurrent players.

An analyst from the Niko Partners company, Daniel Ahmad, says on Twitter that this current peak is partly the result of strong growth in the year 2020 due to the impact of the corona virus. He states that it is clear that this growth has continued in 2021.

In January 2019, more than a year before the start of the corona pandemic, a peak of 17.6 million concurrent players was reached. That was 18.3 million in January 2020. As of the start of the pandemic in March 2020, it was around 24 million. After that, the number dropped considerably, but from the summer of 2020 there has been a significant increase; in January last year there was a peak of 25.4 million and a number of 28.2 million has now been achieved.

Apparently little is changing in the most popular games on Valve’s platform. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is still at the top, followed by Dota 2 and PUBG: Battlegrounds. Apex Legends and Grand Theft Auto round out the top five.