Just a few years ago, every major publisher wanted to have their own launcher and game store. However, many investments in this style turned out to be unsuccessful as players viewed them as a necessary evil. It’s no surprise that Steam, the popular gaming platform, still holds the title for being the most famous PC gaming platform. However, we were not expecting such enormous popularity records to be set repeatedly.
On March 3, 2024, at 2:00 p.m., a record number of players logged into Steam at the same time. A staggering 34,649,583 active Steam users were counted. This number leaves a lasting impression and clearly shows that there is only one king. It’s also worth noting the equally astonishing number of 11,146,564 users playing games at that time. The competition certainly can’t boast similar results, although it’s worth mentioning that during the end-of-year sale in 2023, the Epic Games Store platform was visited by a total of 36.1 million users. However, it’s important to note that this number reflects the entire day, not a specific moment.
The numbers speak for themselves: the most popular games on Steam are still those created for online gaming, such as Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and PUBG. While it’s not surprising to see high attendance records during holidays or major sales, achieving such a result on an ordinary March Sunday afternoon is a phenomenon that is difficult to explain. Given Steam’s successful streak, we can expect the number of simultaneous logins to increase even further in the near future.
