Steam blasts past 42 million concurrent users as its sustained growth continues

A lot of you are gaming hard, it seems. Steam has been on a steady growth trajectory for years now, with the Covid pandemic alone adding five million unique users only in 2020. On 1th January, Valve’s platform crossed the 42 million barrier, setting a new record.

As reported and explained by Wccftech, the PC distribution platform has now more than doubled its concurrent user average since 2020, with new record peaks of activity becoming more and more common in recent years. The previous activity record was 41.6 million users in October 2025.

The full analysis solidifies the feeling that Steam (and PC gaming as a whole) has blown up in popularity in the post-pandemic era: “A quick data analysis reveals distinct growth phases during this period. Before the pandemic, the Steam platform was growing slowly, at a rate of +4.5 percent per year. The lockdown year obviously exploded the platform (as well as all other gaming platforms) with +31.5 percent in a single year, followed by a stabilisation phase and the current phase, which are both between 13.9 percent and 12.6 percent annual growth rate.”

Last month also was Steam’s highest-grossing yet, partly thanks to recent hits like Arc Raiders and viral indie sensations like Peak, on top of everything else. The quality of the more recent Steam sales has also been on the upswing, often countering the deep deals found on other storefronts.

Another reason behind this growth is the rising popularity of the Steam Deck, Valve’s portable PC that’s cracked open PC gaming for plenty of folks who wanted the benefits of Steam and other platforms without the technical hassles which typically come with gaming computers. Even with its technical limitations, it’s become the go-to “console” for plenty of more casual players.

Meanwhile, the Epic Games Store has also seen plenty of growth over six years, but as we expected, most users only show up for the free games given out each week, refusing to spend money on a platform that isn’t nearly as fleshed out as Valve’s beyond the games themselves.