Steam has just set a new all-time record for the number of concurrent users, with Valve's service reaching 18.801.944 in terms of the number of players online simultaneously. As noted by the Steam Database, this happened on Sunday, February 2, and handily surpassed the previous record set in January 2018, which stood at 18537490.
. @Steam broke its record for most simultaneous online users that has stood for two years. The previous record was 18,537,490 users. But there are about 1 million fewer players in the game (.85.8mil vs ≈7mil two years ago).https://t.co/D6WDHbz0B42 Feb 2020 However, keep in mind that this is the number of users logged into the Steam platform, not the total number of people playing games. As the tweet reporting the new record clearly shows, there were over a million players in play at the time, or about 5,8 million vs. about 7 million.
Steam flow
As to what may have caused this spike, several theories are floating around, including possible help from a wave of Chinese users, and indeed the fact that several major games have had major events or updates (including GTA Online offering a in-game cash bonus for login and a recent major PUBG update). There are also cries of "more bots online," and that's not incredible, but we can't be sure. All we know is that there are definitely more users, even if they weren't actually playing a game. Still, the launch of rival Epic Games store in late 2018, with a series of high-end exclusives (and giveaways) that followed to encourage players to sign up, doesn't seem to have blown the wind. Steam user adoption is cruising. Just over three years ago, a new record was set with concurrent users on Steam amounting to 14,200,000. So the new peak represents an increase of almost a third since the start of 2017. If we go back a few years to the end of 2013, the record was just over 7 million, giving you an idea of the pace of growing popularity. of Steam in the last half decade. Via PCGamesN