Steam Usage and Catalog Stats
Written by Backlinko Team
Steam is a massive video game distribution platform.
Launched in 2003, the service has gained popularity among games across the world.
Today, it has 132 million monthly active users and a catalog of over 100 thousand games.
Read on to find the latest Steam stats for 2024.
Here’s a quick overview of what you’ll find on this page:
- Key Steam Stats
- Steam Monthly Active Users
- Steam Daily Active Users
- Steam Peak Concurrent Users
- Total Hours Played on Steam
- How Many New Games Are Added to Steam Each Year?
- Steam’s US Game Library
- What Are the Most Played Games on Steam?
- Steam Games by Genre
- Steam Users with VR Headsets
- Steam Users by OS
- Video Cards among Steam Users
Key Steam Stats
- Steam has 132 million monthly active users.
- 69 million people use Steam on a daily basis.
- The Steam catalog in the US includes 101,035 games.
- 7,885 games were added to Steam in 2024 as of May.
- PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS holds the record for the most concurrent Steam players, peaking at 3.26 million.
Steam Monthly Active Users
Steam has 132 million monthly active users (MAUs). Stream’s active user base has grown by 10% over the past year, adding 12 million new monthly active users in 2021.
The number of monthly active players on Steam has increased by 1.97x since 2017.
Here’s a table showing Steam’s monthly active user growth since 2017:
Year | Steam Monthly Active Users |
---|---|
2017 | 67 million |
2018 | 90 million |
2019 | 95 million |
2020 | 120 million |
2021 | 132 million |
Source: Statista
Steam Daily Active Users
Steam has 69 million daily active users.
An increase from 62.6 million daily active players in 2020. More than half (52.27%) of MAUs access Steam at least once a day.
Source: Steam
Steam Peak Concurrent Users
36.35 million users concurrently accessed Steam at one point in March 2024, marking an all-time peak to date.
The average daily peak for May 2024 was 35.55 million concurrent users. That’s a year-over-year increase of 10.2%.
We’ve charted the growth in Steam’s peak concurrent user count since January 2007:
Date | Steam Peak Concurrent Users |
---|---|
January 2007 | 313 thousand |
January 2008 | 1.27 million |
January 2009 | 1.68 million |
January 2010 | 2.7 million |
February 2011 | 3.45 million |
February 2012 | 5.08 million |
February 2013 | 6.56 million |
February 2014 | 7.48 million |
March 2015 | 9.28 million |
March 2016 | 12.8 million |
March 2017 | 13.7 million |
March 2018 | 18.52 million |
October 2019 | 16.83 million |
January 2020 | 18.33 million |
March 2020 | 23.64 million |
June 2020 | 21.63 million |
December 2020 | 24.8 million |
March 2021 | 26.85 million |
December 2021 | 21.17 million |
March 2022 | 29.77 million |
December 2022 | 31.6 million |
March 2023 | 33.6 million |
December 2023 | 32.7 million |
March 2024 | 36.35 million |
April 2024 | 36.3 million |
May 2024 | 35.55 million |
Source: SteamDB
Total Hours Played on Steam
Steam users logged 37.87 billion hours of playtime in 2021.
Playtime has grown by 21% over the last year, outstripping the 10.2% growth in MAUs.
Source: Steam
How Many New Games Are Added to Steam Each Year?
A total of 7,885 games were released to Steam in 2024 (as of May). In 2023, a total of 14,534 games were added to Steam, setting a yearly record to date.
Here’s a table showing the annual number of Steam game releases since 2006:
Year | Steam Game Releases |
---|---|
2006 | 71 |
2007 | 136 |
2008 | 242 |
2009 | 379 |
2010 | 275 |
2011 | 280 |
2012 | 302 |
2013 | 435 |
2014 | 1,715 |
2015 | 2,827 |
2016 | 4,664 |
2017 | 6,942 |
2018 | 8,980 |
2019 | 8,112 |
2020 | 9,175 |
2021 | 11,341 |
2022 | 12,472 |
2023 | 14,534 |
2024 | 7,885 |
Source: SteamDB
Steam’s US Game Library
Steam’s US library contains 179,934 titles across all categories.
This includes add-on content like mods and soundtracks.
101,035 games are available on Steam as of June 2024.
Source: Steam
What Are the Most Played Games on Steam?
Ranked by all-time peak concurrent users, PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS is the most-played game on Steam.
Palworld and Counter-Strike 2 round out the top 3.
Here’s a complete list of the top 15 most popular games on Steam:
Game | All-Time Peak Concurrent Users |
---|---|
PUGS: BATTLEGROUNDS | 3.26 million |
Palworld | 2.1 million |
Counter-Strike 2 | 1.82 million |
Lost Ark | 1.33 million |
Dota 2 | 1.3 million |
Cyberpunk 2077 | 1.05 million |
ELDEN RING | 953 thousand |
New World | 914 thousand |
Hogwarts Legacy | 879 thousand |
Baldur’s Gate 3 | 875 thousand |
Goose Goose Duck | 703 thousand |
Apex Legends | 624 thousand |
Valheim | 502 thousand |
Call of Duty | 492 thousand |
Terraria | 490 thousand |
Source: SteamDB
Steam Games by Genre
The Steam library includes 61,295 indie games, more than any other genre. Action and adventure are also popular categories, each with over 47,000 titles.
We’ve charted the number of games on Steam by genre:
Genre | Steam Games |
---|---|
Indie | 61,295 |
Action | 50,012 |
Adventure | 47,590 |
Casual | 46,935 |
Simulation | 23,607 |
Strategy | 23,383 |
RPG | 22,969 |
Source: SteamDB
Steam Users with VR Headsets
Steam survey data suggests that only 1.99% of users have VR headsets.
Among Steam users with VR headsets, 38.1% use Oculus Quest 2.
Here’s a breakdown of Steam users who own VR headsets by model:
VR Headset | Share of Steam Users |
---|---|
Oculus Quest 2 | 38.1% |
Valve Index HMD | 16.87% |
Meta Quest 3 | 15.56% |
Oculus Rift S | 7.5% |
HTC Vive | 4.33% |
Oculus Rift | 4,03% |
Windows Mixed Reality | 3.85% |
Pico 4 | 2.26% |
HTC Vive Pro | 1.07% |
Oculus Quest | 1.06% |
Source: Steam
Steam Users by OS
The vast majority (96.21%) of Steam users access the platform on Windows.
Here’s the full breakdown of Steam users by operating system:
Operating System | Share of Steam Users |
---|---|
Windows | 96.21% |
Linux | 2.32% |
OSX | 1.47% |
Source: Steam
Video Cards among Steam Users
76.18% of Steam users on PC have a video card made by NVIDIA.
AMD and Intel account for a further 23.58%.
Here’s a comprehensive overview of PC video cards among the Steam user base:
Brand | Share of Steam Users |
---|---|
NVIDIA | 76.18% |
AMD | 15.96% |
Intel | 7.62% |
Other | 0.24% |
Source: Steam
Conclusion
That’s all for my 2024 Steam stats roundup.
The video game platform has consistently grown its user base since launching two decades ago.
Steam saw an increase in usage during the pandemic and remains a popular platform post-pandemic.