Yesterday, Valve 's leading PC games distribution platform, Steam , reached a new user concurrency record. As , at 14:00 UTC, Steam surpassed 42 million concurrent users .
The previous record (41.6 million users) was set in October 2025 , but the platform has been on a steady growth trajectory for years now:
A quick data analysis reveals distinct growth phases during this period. Before the pandemic, the Steam platform was growing slowly, at a rate of +4.5% per year. The lockdown year obviously exploded the platform (as well as all other gaming platforms) with +31.5% in a single year, followed by a stabilization phase and the current phase, which are both between 13.9% and 12.6% annual growth rate, well above the pre-COVID trajectory.
| Phase | Period | Start | End | Growth | % Growth | Annual Growth Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-COVID | Nov 2017 → Feb 2020 | 17.6M | 20.0M | +2.4M | +13.6% | +4.5%/year |
| COVID | Mar 2020 → Feb 2021 | 20.0M | 26.3M | +6.3M | +31.5% | +31.5%/year |
| Post-COVID | Mar 2021 → Oct 2022 | 25.0M | 30.0M | +5.0M | +20.0% | +13.9%/year |
| Beyond COVID | Nov 2022 → Jan 2026 | 30.0M | 42.0M | +12.0M | +40.0% | +12.6%/year |
Notably, unlike the Epic Games Store , which also , Steam is also meaningfully growing its revenue. According to estimates shared last week by Alinea Analytics , December 2025 was the best December yet for Steam , with the platform generating over $1.6 billion last month. This represented a 22.7% increase over December 2024 and comfortably beat the gross revenue of $1.4 billion generated by Steam in December 2020 during the height of the pandemic.
Long story short: Valve owner Gabe Newell might soon be able to celebrate with another superyacht , because why not?
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