Steam hit a new peak of users online today, crossing 41M CCUs

BennyBlanco

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69


To put it in perspective 33M was the record in early 2024



incredible growth in the last 5 years or so. I would've guessed it would peak during Covid then slide a bit.


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I don't get why concurrent users is an important metric. Shouldn't concurrent players in game be tracked instead?

And we actually have that data tracked too.
 
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I seriously expected the Covid record peaks to last for years (how naive!). But it turns out it brought a ton of new users to the platform and they stayed.
2015 peak was 8.4M, an average increase of 3.3M per year.

2015 was the same year Steamspy started tracking stuff and it became fashionable to check the numbers. At the time an average CCU of 40k was indicative of a successful multiplayer game and secured you a spot in the Top 10 most played list. Now you earn a spot in the mid/high 30's with a paltry 40k.
 
TrebleShot said:
Who knew being transparent and focusing on services would equal success
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Don't tell Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony... But that's actually the secret sauce and it feeds the trending algorithms.

The open access to data makes Steam/PC the yardstick from whence everything else is judged. You don't see social media posts, forum posts or articles about console Game X having 400k CCU on consoles. At best you see Microsoft offer some absolutely meaningless metrics. It's considered trade secrets so it's obfuscated as much as possible.
 
Senua said:
Threads like these just aren't the same without rofif
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People acting like this is the second coming of gaben because a number went up again.
Half of that is people with Steam minimized while they watch YouTube.
Don't let the this fool you, this isn't 41 million gamers...

Valve isn't doing anything revolutionary here either. No new features, no real competition, they are a monopoly.
PC gaming stronger than ever, sure thing. Meanwhile, it's the same 10 live service games carrying the entire thing.
41M? Half of those users are just background processes and crappy sub PS4 gaming rigs in sleep mode. And bots too.
These numbers are fake.
 
mèx said:
People acting like this is the second coming of gaben because a number went up again.
Half of that is people with Steam minimized while they watch YouTube.
Don't let the this fool you, this isn't 41 million gamers...

Valve isn't doing anything revolutionary here either. No new features, no real competition, they are a monopoly.
PC gaming stronger than ever, sure thing. Meanwhile, it's the same 10 live service games carrying the entire thing.
41M? Half of those users are just background processes and crappy sub PS4 gaming rigs in sleep mode. And bots too.
These numbers are fake.
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Sertyak said:
I don't get why concurrent users is an important metric. Shouldn't concurrent players in game be tracked instead?

And we actually have that data tracked too.
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Some people don't like hearing that. steam CCU counts even when not interacting with steam but just booting up your PC. It's why the green line (using PC) is growing faster than the blue one (in game). Ingame one set a record in March, in game is lower today than march but the green one (using PC) set a record the 8th of this month

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it may beat the March record near Christmas.
 
Three said:
Some people don't like hearing that. steam CCU counts even when not interacting with steam but just booting up your PC. It's why the green line (using PC) is growing faster than the blue one (in game). Ingame one set a record in March, in game is lower today than march but the green one (using PC) set a record the 8th of this month

Screenshot-20251012-234445-Chrome.jpg


it may beat the March record near Christmas.
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Mex already made the rofif joke
 
Gameplay Gods Bless said:
Doesn't matter steam bodies Playstation on concurrents, monthly active users etc. User growth on console has been power crept by PC.
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Nobody said it doesn't but I understand the "vs console" mindset of some of you PC lot.

I just said the record for ingame users was back in march and agreed that ingame is more important. Somebody mentioned the covid boost and expecting that boost to drop too and it did at the "19" label but that didnt uninstall steam from the PCs so the green didn't go down like the blue. The boost from covid wasn't even that large but it did correct itself on the blue line.
 
The far more interesting question is where, geographically and demographically is this growth coming from?

Because I highly, highly doubt its driven by established Western markets.
 
Three said:
China

www.eurogamer.net

50% of all Steam users in February were Chinese-speaking

In February, 50% of all Steam users were Chinese-speaking due to Chinese New Year and certain popular Chinese games
www.eurogamer.net www.eurogamer.net
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Xbox should have invested a lot more into cornering this market if they wanted to remain relevant. Consoles have nowhere to go but up in terms of popularity there. PC is king because it's all the Chinese have known for decades, but the expanding middle class will have use for a cheap and convenient gaming machine in the long run.
 
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Gaiff said:
Xbox should have invested a lot more into cornering this market if they wanted to remain relevant. Consoles have nowhere to go but up in terms of popularity there. PC is king because it's all the Chinese have known for decades, but the expanding middle class will have use for a cheap and convenient gaming machine in the long run.
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I think they tried during xbox one and it gave birth to that "just 1% of China" meme but they fumbled a lot of things too with games like Wukong and Stellar blade. Playstation had a good boost in China with those games and Xbox has always done a terrible job with asian games in general. The other problem is that-that market has to have approved games by the goverment whereas on laptops and PCs people circumvent restrictions. 80% of chinese users have circumvented using chinese steam and installed VPNs/international versions of steam for access to things. For console it's normally grey market imports and international digital stores.
 
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This is what happens when you don't have stockholder parasites demanding more and more short-term gains at the expense of overall quality and customer satisfaction
 
Clear said:
The far more interesting question is where, geographically and demographically is this growth coming from?

Because I highly, highly doubt its driven by established Western markets.
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Lots from China, but it is growing everywhere. Chinese language is currently only around 28% of the Steam Global stats.

It should be noted that the information from the monthly Steam Survey and these concurrent users do not include Steam China, which is run on a totally different server base and build. So while a lot of Chinese users use the regular Steam client with VPN, the majority probably don't.
 
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Three said:
Some people don't like hearing that. steam CCU counts even when not interacting with steam but just booting up your PC. It's why the green line (using PC) is growing faster than the blue one (in game). Ingame one set a record in March, in game is lower today than march but the green one (using PC) set a record the 8th of this month

Screenshot-20251012-234445-Chrome.jpg


it may beat the March record near Christmas.
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Completely false. The ONLY way the green line and the blue line would grow at the same rate is if all the new users (green) were from the same region. The reason the green line is far outpacing the blue is because the new players are in new regions, like China, which means they'd be playing during different peaks. This whole idea that Steam just magically appears on every new PC and people don't know how to stop programs from starting at boot is one lamest copes of all time.
 
Zathalus said:
Lots from China, but it is growing everywhere. Chinese language is currently only around 28% of the Steam Global stats.

It should be noted that the information from the monthly Steam Survey and these concurrent users do not include Steam China, which is run on a totally different server base and build. So while a lot of Chinese users use the regular Steam client with VPN, the majority probably don't.
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People seem to be overlooking that its important to know who these concurrent users are and what they are playing.
If a large contingent of these "new" users are migrating in from, for example, mobile as opposed to consoles then what you are going to a shift towards is servicing that demographic's tastes.

The problem I have with a lot of PC fanboys is that they are so fixated on trying to prove their superiority over console players they are missing the fact that PC gaming is a very broad church and that producers will always head towards where the market is. So if Gacha/F2P stuff is seen as the thing because it creates a bump in CCU, then that's what there's going to be more of.

Face it guys, what we're actually talking about here is the dreaded "E"-word, ENGAGEMENT, and more of that is only a good thing for people looking to sell you shit, not the state of the industry.
 
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