On January 2, 2022, Steam Hit 27.9 Million Users
Steam has done it once again. According to Steam DB (who is not affiliated with Valve), there have been 27.9 million concurrent users. This breaks the last record that Steam set for concurrent users at the end of November 2021, at 27.3 million users.
The specific record-breaking number, which occurred on January 2, 2022, was 27,942,036. Over 8.2 million people were actively gaming at the time, according to records, which is a huge jump. The last time that there were that many people that were actively gaming was back in April 2020.
This may have to do with the Steam Holiday Sale December 22nd – January 5th, 2021, and the great deals that are possible to get. It could also do with the global situation too, or just the fact that it’s still the New Years’ holidays.
But what’s the most interesting development is the fact that the top games are being played at the record-breaking moment. Unlike in November, where there are mostly new games, the top games were from the past years, only with two games coming from 2021- New World and Football Manager 2022. The other games, CS:GO, Dota 2, PUBG, Apex Legends, Grand Theft Auto 5, Team Fortress 2, Rust, and Ark: Survival Evolved which range from release dates from 2019 to way back in 2007.
It’s an interesting fact, though we don’t know if playing old games more than new ones will continue. On the Steam DB Twitter, we do see that the top three sellers for the week ending on January 2 were all new games- Ready or Not, It Takes Two, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach.
But in the top ten, was the game Rust.
#SteamTopSellers for week ending 2 January 2022:
#1 – Ready or Not
#2 – It Takes Two
#3 – Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach
#4 – Valve Index VR Kit
#5 – Project Zomboidhttps://t.co/iYuw2nzsAX— SteamDB (@SteamDB) January 2, 2022
So, while we wait for the number of users to it the 28 million mark (which may happen this year, maybe even sooner than we may believe), It would be interesting to see if and when Steam hits that record amount of users if players are trying out new games from the current year, or are simply going back to the games that they love.