Usually we steer clear of the silly people who say that PC gaming is dead. They’re blind to the fact that the PC is a thriving platform from which all gaming machines derive their best ideas. And they smell. But every now and then it’s nice to be able to throw something back along with a note say “Nah na ne na nah, you’re wrong!”
The news that Steam’s passed 7 million concurrent users is just one of those facts to throw back.
Related: Check our guide to the best free Steam games.
We already know what Valve’s distribution client has a population larger than many countries but on top of that it has a decent proportion of them all logged in at the same time. More than 10% of Valve’s 65 million users are logged in at any one time, making for a massive 7 million concurrent users.
That fact alone is pretty impressive but more impressive is the fact that this time last year the client had a peak concurrent users of 6 million. So in a year that number’s gone up by a million. Which was itself a million more concurrent users than the year before.
Plus, back in 2011 when the peak was 5 million there were 40 million registered accounts, a year on there were 50 million, and another year on there are 65 million. Steam’s becoming steadily more popular with each passing year.
All this bodes extremely well for Valve’s Steam Box. Sure, not every Steam user is going to rush out and by one of Valve’s machines but with a userbase as large as Steam’s, and one which is clearly engaged with the client, there’s a good chance that there will be many early adopters of the living room hardware.
Valve must be pretty excited to see how this all turns out.