This is getting a bit weird now. Two weeks ago, Steam broke its concurrent player record, registering 34.6 million users. One week later, it broke through that number, logging over 35 million players using the platform at the same time. Seven days later, it’s gone and broken the record yet again.
According to figures from the third-party website SteamDB, over 36 million concurrent players were using Steam over the weekend. The screenshot posted to Twitter/X shows the exact figure as 36,294,835. However, the most recent data shows it as 36,354,393. That’s within the last 24 hours.
I casually mentioned last week that it can’t be said for certain whether the numbers would keep going up. As of now, it does seem a pattern is emerging which suggests we might Steam log even more users. Possibly by next weekend.The PC storefront certainly has good reason to prep for upcoming demand, too. This week, we’ll see Stardew Valley launch its 1.6 update first on PC tomorrow, March 19, while Dragon’s Dogma 2 makes its debut on March 22.
I should have more faith in my predictions
There probably isn’t one single reason why these numbers have been broken for three weeks in a row. The Steam Spring Sale kicked off last week – and is ongoing until this Thursday. That could explain some of the uptick, but there’s usually other factors involved.
I guess the reasons aren’t massively important. Gaming is forever becoming more popular in general, generating billions in revenue on a yearly basis. But the data on SteamDB shows the PC gaming client has seen an increase of 8.9% over the last 30 days, something that hasn’t been noted in quite some time.
That’s quite the anomaly, given there doesn’t appear to have been much of note over the last weekend. Either that or I’m missing something.
Published: Mar 18, 2024 12:02 pm