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Grand Theft Auto V on PC is the most successful non-Valve game on Steam ever

Grand theft auto V player numbers copies sold GTA 5 Rockstar North Take Two interactive

Grand Theft Auto V’s not even been out for 24 hours and its already taken the number three spot on Steam’s top played chart, sitting behind Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. That’s impressive but what’s even more impressive is the sheer number of players.

At one point 295,000 people were all playing concurrently. That’s a record for a non-Valve game.

We’ve been looking through the likely competitors for their peak player numbers on Steam. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 topped out at 70,000 concurrent players, Skyrim peaked at 78,000, and Civilization V at 91,000.

Not only does this mean that GTA V looks to hold the record for most concurrent players on Steam (outside of a Valve game) it may make it the most successful PC launch ever. Dota and CS:GO built up their player base gradually over years, at the beginning they were quite small titles. GTA V’s got there in a day.

The Steam numbers are only part of the story. People who bought their copy through other outlets won’t be picked up in Steam’s stats. That could potentially be a large number of players considering stores like Green Man Gaming were selling GTA V for £10 less than Steam.

Hopefully Rockstar will release some numbers in the future.