Steam has become one of the world’s most popular gaming distribution platforms since its launch in 2003
Beyond its role as an online game marketplace, Steam fosters community engagement among game developers and players alike, contributing to its widespread popularity.
The number of Steam players has now exceeded 132 million, with millions playing games on the platform simultaneously.
Let’s explore more details about number of Steam users, most popular games on the platform, Steam revenue, and more in this article.
Steam Statistics 2024 (Editor’s Pick)
- Steam has 132 million monthly active users (MAU).
- The platform has 69 million daily active users (DAU).
- Steam is estimated to generate a revenue of $8.58 billion in 2024.
- PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS is the most popular game on Steam, with 3.26 million all-time peak concurrent users.
- In September 2024, Steam hit an all-time peak, with 38.37 million users accessing the platform at the same time.
How Many People Use Steam?
Steam has 132 million monthly active players (MAU).
According to the latest data revealed by Steam’s owner, Valve, the platform reached 132 million users in 2021. That was an increase of 10% compared to the 120 million Steam users recorded in 2020.
Here is a table displaying the number of Steam active players by year:
Year | Steam Monthly Active Users |
---|---|
2021 | 132 million |
2020 | 120 million |
2019 | 95 million |
2018 | 90 million |
2017 | 67 million |
Source: Statista
Steam Daily Active Users
Steam has 69 million daily active users (DAU).
As of the latest data, the platform had 69 million daily active players in 2021, an increase of 6.4 million daily active players compared to 62.6 million recorded in 2022.
Over 52.27% of the Steam monthly active users access the platform at least once a day.
Here is a table displaying the daily active users of Steam worldwide:
Year | Steam Daily Active Users |
---|---|
2021 | 69 million |
2020 | 62.6 million |
2018 | 47 million |
2017 | 33 million |
Source: Statista
Steam Concurrent Users
In September 2024, Steam reached a record high, with 38.37 million users accessing the platform simultaneously.
Meanwhile, the peak concurrent players in August 2024 and July 2024 were 37.27 million and 36.61 million, respectively.
Here is a table displaying the concurrent users of Steam recorded in the past months:
Month | Peak Concurrent players |
---|---|
September 2024 | 38,367,277 |
August 2024 | 37,266,324 |
July 2024 | 36,609,032 |
June 2024 | 36,928,521 |
May 2024 | 35,552,327 |
April 2024 | 36,300,119 |
March 2024 | 36,354,393 |
February 2024 | 33,393,132 |
January 2024 | 33,675,229 |
December 2023 | 32,669,308 |
Source: SteamDB
Steam Revenue 2024
Steam’s revenue for 2024 is projected to reach $8.58 billion, slightly up from the $8.56 billion recorded in 2023.
Looking ahead, the platform’s revenue is expected to grow to $8.9 billion by 2028.
Here is a table displaying Steam revenue by year:
Year | Revenue |
---|---|
2028* | $8.9 billion |
2027* | $8.82 billion |
2026* | $8.73 billion |
2025* | $8.67 billion |
2024* | $8.58 billion |
2023 | $8.56 billion |
2022 | $8.78 billion |
2021 | $10.04 billion |
2020 | $9.72 billion |
*Projected
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor-NEW is the best-selling game on Steam by revenue as of May 2023.
Here is a list of the top best-selling games on Steam by revenue.
- Star War Jedi: Survivor-NEW
- Steam Deck
- Mahjong Soul
- Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II
- Age Of Wonders 4- NEW
- Naraka: Bladepoint
- Cult of the Lamb
- Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon- Pre-orders
- Don’t Starve Together
- FIFA 23
- 50% of Steam’s revenue comes from only 100 games.
- According to 2021 data, Steam yielded an average revenue of $23.66 per user. However, projections indicate that the average revenue per user will decline to $19.35 by 2027.
Source: Statista.
Most Popular Games On Steam
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS holds the title of the most popular game on Steam, with an all-time peak of 3.26 million concurrent players.
Black Myth: Wukong, Palworld, Counter-Strike 2, and Lost Ark make it to the top 5 of the list.
Here is a table displaying the most played games on Steam:
Games | All-Time Peak Players |
---|---|
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS | 3,257,248 |
Black Myth: Wukong | 2,415,714 |
Palworld | 2,101,867 |
Counter-Strike 2 | 1,818,773 |
Lost Ark | 1,325,305 |
Dota 2 | 1,295,114 |
Cyberpunk 2077 | 1,054,388 |
ELDEN RING | 953,426 |
Banana | 917,272 |
New World | 913,634 |
Source: SteamDB
Steam Demographics Statistics
Based on Statista’s report, there are more male video gamers than female gamers in the United States. In this section, we’ll explore this topic further.
43% of Steam users in the United States are aged between 20 to 29 years.
- 20 to 29 years- 43%
- More than 65 years- 6%
14.43% of Steam users are from the United States.
There are more than 30 million Steam users in China.
68% of Steam gamers are male, while the remaining 32% are female in the United States.
Source: Enterprise Apps Today, Statista.
Steam Games Statistics
There are numerous games available on Steam, but only a select few can make it to the top of the list.
In this section, we will highlight all of the top games currently available on Steam.
- Nearly 50,361 games games are available on Steam as of 2024.
- In 2023, 9,103 games were released on Steam worldwide.
Year | The Number of Games Released on Steam Worldwide |
---|---|
2004 | 64 |
2005 | 79 |
2006 | 143 |
2007 | 129 |
2008 | 190 |
2009 | 278 |
2010 | 309 |
2011 | 323 |
2012 | 434 |
2013 | 583 |
2014 | 1,348 |
2015 | 2,500 |
2016 | 4,315 |
2017 | 6,306 |
2018 | 8,159 |
2019 | 7,816 |
2020 | 9,635 |
2021 | 10,283 |
2022 | 10,963 |
2023 | 9,103 |
- Your Chronicle is the most popular game on Steam by average playtime, with 237 hours and 32 minutes as of February 2023.
Game | Hours Spend In Two Weeks |
---|---|
Your Chronicle | 237 hours and 32 minutes |
War Robots | 208 hours and 59 minutes |
Robocraft | 118 hours and 37 minutes |
Black Squad | 103 hours and 51 minutes |
Empyrion- Galactic Survival | 79 hours and 27 minutes |
Hurtworld | 60 hours and 36 minutes |
Crossout | 59 hours and 42 minutes |
Unturned | 45 hours and 11 minutes |
Football Manager 2021 | 44 hours and 13 minutes |
Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI with Power Up Kit | 43 hours and 42 minutes |
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is the top game on Steam by the hourly average number of players, with 603.77K players.
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive- 603.77K players
- Dota 2- 466.5K players
- Lost Ark- 277.66K players
- PUBG- 207.87K players
- Apex Legends- 188.38K players
- Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II- 149.4K players
- Elden Ring- 111.26K players
- Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA V)- 93.59K players
- Team Fortress 2- 86.68K players
- Rust- 79.89K players
The most-rated game on Steam is Portal 2, with 97.61% of an average rating.
Only five games have more than 97% of ratings on Steams. These games are Portal 2, Hades, Factorio, The Witcher: Wild Hunt, and Terraria.
- Portal 2- 97.61%
- Factorio- 97.44%
- Hades- 97.43%
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt- 97.10%
- Terraria- 97.09%
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive only have 88% of ratings on Steam.
On Steam, the top 1% of games earn more than $25 million.
Half of the Steam games (50%) even do not earn $5,000.
There are only 12 games that have Platinum ratings on Steam.
On average, 63 games sales for every review on Steam.
Over 50,000 games are available on U.S. Steam Store.
From 2020, the sales of games on Steam increased by 21%.
Source: Statista, Finance Online.
Steam Content Statistics
Here we will take a look at the most popular languages used by Steam users on the Steam platform. Let’s dive right in.
English is the most common language of the Steam gaming platform, with 36.87% of the share as of 2023.
- English- 36.87%
- Simplified Chinese- 23.81%
- Russian- 10.31%
- Spanish-Spain- 5.63%
- Portuguese-Brazil- 4.08%
- German- 2.96%
- French- 2.38%
- Japanese- 2.18%
- Polish- 1.92%
- Turkish- 1.64%
Source: Statista.
Steam Library Statistics
You’ll find a diverse range of game developers within the Steam Library. In the following section, we’ll highlight some of the industry’s leading developers on Steam.
Valve game developer has the top ratings, with 8.5 ratings.
- Valve- 8.5 ratings
- Supergiant Games- 8.44 ratings
- Klei Developers- 8.4 ratings
- The Behemoth- 8.36 ratings
- Free Lives- 8.35 ratings
- CDPR- 8.18 ratings
- Bethesda- 7.85 ratings
- Feral Interactive- 7.8 ratings
Source: Finance Online.
What Steam Gamers Use?
Gamers utilize various tools and devices while engaging in online games. In this section, I have gathered all pertinent statistics regarding the gadgets used by Steam gamers.
Let’s take a look.
- 48 million Steam users use game controllers.
- 74.83% of Steam users use NVIDIA video cards.
Here is a list of video cards that Steam users use.
- NVIDIA- 74.83%
- AMD- 16.28%
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060- 9.19%
- Intel- 8.76%
100% of Steam users use microphones.
71.34% of Steam gamers use Intel as a PC processor.
22.91% of Steam gamers use Oculus Quest 2 VR headsets.
- Oculus Quest 2- 22.91%
- Oculus Rift S- 21.58%
- Valve Index HMD- 16%
71.82% of Steam users with multiple monitors have a desktop resolution of 2840 x 1080, while 67.29% have a primary display resolution of 1920 x 1080.
Windows 10-64 bit operating system is most used by Steam games, with 63.46% of the share as of 2023.
- Windows 10 64-bit- 63.46%
- Windows 11 64-bit- 30.33%
- Windows 7 64-bit- 1.6%
- Mac OS 12.5.0 64-bit- 0.52%
- Others- 4.09%
16 GB RAM is used by more than half of the Steam users, with 51.74% of the share as of 2023.
- 16 GB- 51.74%
- 8 GB- 21.3%
- 32 GB- 13.84%
- 4 GB- 5.84%
- Other- 7.28%
Source: Finance Online.
Conclusion: Over 132 Million People Use Steam
Steam continues to maintain its position as the leading digital gaming platform, boasting impressive growth in both user base and revenue.
With over 132 million active users, record-breaking concurrent player counts, and projected revenue projected to reach $8.9 billion by 2028, Steam remains one of the most popular platforms in the gaming industry.