Steam is the most popular platform for PC gamers all around the world. It’s where users can buy and launch games, store their saved data, market themselves with attractive profiles, trade in a marketplace, and much more. It’s where developers from the smallest studios to the largest companies in the industry list their games for sale, and it has been around for more than twenty years. With all that in mind, what does the Steam player count look like in 2024? How many people are actually using Steam?

More alternatives are popping up all the time. From the Epic Games launcher to EA Desktop, and from Ubisoft Connect to the Xbox Launcher, plenty of PC-based applications serve the same purpose as Steam. However, it can be argued that none boast the sheer popularity of Steam. It’s the brainchild of Valve, and the company has worked hard over the last two decades to make it the number one destination for PC gamers.

So, what’s the Steam player count in 2024?

How Many Games Are On Steam?

Steam is a treasure trove of titles from past and present; over time, it has swollen massively. It has become the go-to port of call for anyone on PC looking to score some top-tier games – and there are tens of thousands to choose from. There’s a brilliant graph that showcases how the number of games released on Steam has climbed to monumental heights since the platform debuted at the turn of the millennium:

In 2004, just 64 new games were released on Steam. By 2014, that number had swollen to 1,342, and as PC gaming gathered steam, the number climbed rapidly. In 2022, an all-time high was hit, with 10,644 games being released on Steam in the space of a single year. This is because more people are developing games, tools are becoming more affordable and accessible, and gaming in general is becoming much more popular.

But how many games are on Steam? Well, at the end of 2023, it was estimated that the active Steam catalogue features around 50,300 games.

Steam Player Count in 2024

Steam is a very transparent platform – Valve has made sure of that over the years. It’s easy to gather key data such as how many players are on Steam and which game is selling the best on the launcher at any given time. It’s brilliant for those interested in learning more about the impact Steam has on the PC gaming market.

According to Steam’s data, the all-time peak concurrent player count on the platform was 33,598,520 users. At the time of writing, 23,034,575 gamers were using Steam, and 6,051,286 of those users were actively playing a game. In terms of a split, Counter-Strike 2 sat at the top of the table with a whopping 848,245 users, while Dota 2 landed in second place with 371,260 players.

Steam’s player count has risen at a steady rate over the last two decades, with some sharp jumps being recognised throughout history. For instance, in 2020, a massive spike was observed as the COVID-19 pandemic was declared and millions of people were forced to stay home to avoid contracting the virus. That meant that many more people were around to play games, and PC gaming in general saw a massive boom.

Is Steam Still Popular?

By sheer numbers alone, Steam is still massively popular in 2024. It’s the number one platform for PC gamers, even amidst the rise of many competing platforms and applications. There have been some sizeable changes to the platform that haven’t been looked at favourably by the gaming community, such as changes to international pricing models, but in general, Steam remains strong and stable.

It’s a hugely popular application that continues to grow over time, and it’s one of the safest and most reputable ways to buy and play games on PC. If you’ve been thinking about putting together a PC setup, you’ll certainly want to use Steam to secure some of your first games. It’s also worth noting that the platform pushes regular sales that see almost every game on the application drop in price – sometimes dramatically so.