Steam just broke its concurrent user record with 41.6 million gamers

A few days ago, Valve's Steam broke its CCU (concurrent user) record with 41.6 million PC gamers (or 41,666,455 to be exact). This impressive figure represents a staggering 10 million more users than the concurrent user records from 2022 and 2023, serving as a reminder that the global PC gaming market continues to grow and expand, with Steam leading the charge.

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This figure isn't a surge or anomaly, as tens of millions of PC gamers log into Steam every day or keep their PCs on. However, with this new CCU milestone recorded on October 12, many are attributing it to the recent string of popular PC game releases: namely, Battlefield 6 and Hollow Knight: Silksong. That, along with the latest Steam Next Fest, which offers gamers a bunch of demos of unreleased titles to play.

That said, free-to-play titles like Counter-Strike 2, DOTA 2, and PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS continue to be the most played games on the platform. As of writing, Battlefield 6 is sitting in third place as the most played game on Steam, with games Banan, Bongo Cat, Delta Force, Marvel Rivals, and Warframe rounding out the top ten.

• Read more: Steam sets new record for concurrent players
• Read more: Hollow Knight Silksong takes over Nintendo Switch as the eShop's #1 best seller
• Read more: Roblox just recorded more concurrent players at once than all of Steam

Of course, Steam isn't the only PC gaming platform; there's the Epic Games Store for Fortnite, there's Xbox, and even Roblox. However, with its broad library of blockbuster, multiplayer, and indie titles, Steam is widely viewed as the number one PC gaming platform. It's hard to imagine a PC gaming landscape where Steam isn't the dominant player, as even companies like Microsoft, EA, and Ubisoft release their titles on Steam in addition to their own platforms and storefronts. Microsoft is going so far as to integrate Steam libraries into its native Xbox app on PC, which is a key feature of its new ROG Xbox Ally X handheld.

If Steam's growth continues at this rate, it will hit 50 million concurrent users a lot sooner than expected.