Steam has always been one of the most popular game stores/clients for PC. Epic Games, GOG Galaxy, Battle.net, are also among the top-ranking clients, but they don’t hold a candle to Steam.
Its lead in the PC gaming industry saw a surge during the pandemic and its effects are still visible to this day since most of us are still stuck in our homes. Valve’s widely beloved game store started 2022 with nearly 28 million concurrent users and it has now crossed the 29.8 million mark worldwide.
It is only a matter of time before the 30 million milestone is breached.
There are a number of reasons why Steam is hitting all-time high numbers today. The first and foremost reason is obviously the pandemic, but another major factor is that Steam’s flagship games continue to have a very active player base. Titles including Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and DOTA 2 are still completely free and continue to attract more players.
At the time of writing, Counter-Strike and DOTA 2 have 897,652 and 698,553 active players respectively.
Another contributing factor would be PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, more commonly known as PUBG. It is already a highly popular battle royale game, but it recently settled into a free-to-play model. Right now, it is the third most popular video game on Steam with 526,863 active players on the platform.
If this trend continues to grow, Steam may just be able to hit 30 million active players in February 2022.
