Steam Tops 42 Million Concurrent Users - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 12 January 2026 / 3,961 Views
Valve's Steam has set a new record over the weekend for concurrent users online at the same time with over 42 million, according to SteamDB.
Steam reached 42,042,778 concurrent users online on Sunday, which is the first time the service surpassed 42 million users online at the same time.
This figure is up from 40 million concurrent users in March 2025, 38 million in September 2024, 36 million in March 2024, 23.5 million in March 2020, 18.5 million in January 2018, and 8.4 million in January 2015.
Steam reaches 42 million concurrent users
— SteamDB (@steamdb.info) January 11, 2026 at 9:28 AM
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A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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people have steam in the background, it means their PC is on/idle, they are not real users, you should only care about the number of people ingame, the blue line
and that line doesn't grow as fast as the green one, wich indicate that the number is inflated
Do we have equivalent figures for PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo? Or all three? I wonder if there are more active players on consoles or on PC?
I don't know any numbers for consoles at the moment, but at 42 million concurrent users, I'd bet my money on Steam (+ for PC, there's other platforms as well, although they probably don't contribute a ton).
PC gaming tends to be bigger than console gaming combined, not just because of Steam, but due to certain games being on specific storefronts.
These are numbers just for Steam, where you'll find the likes of Counter-Strike, Dota 2, and most other major third-party games.
However, if you wanna play Fortnite, that's only on the Epic Games Store launcher.
If you wanna play Minecraft, that's another specific launcher.
If you wanna play Roblox, that's another launcher.
If you wanna play World of Warcraft, that's another launcher.
If you wanna play League of Legends and/or Valorant, that's another launcher.
The games listed there have tens of millions of players every day, just on PC alone, before considering Steam player numbers. Hell, Roblox alone has tens of millions of players just on PC lol.
But then there's mobile gaming that trumps both PC and console gaming combined xD
No way to see concurrent users on any of the consoles... But idk if that even matters
Daily, Weekly, Monthly users are a much better indicator of platform health rather than concurrent
We can see monthly active users through some reports.
I.E Playstation Network which is bigger than Switch/Xbox with online users... Saw 123~ million users across PS3/PS4/PS5 consoles.
Steam? Estimates are putting it at 185~ million users.
Not bad for a platform that console gamers called "dead" during the 7th gen.
Looks like a little over 13 million were in-game when this figure was recorded. Insane growth from a decade ago.
True.. however the scalability of games in general is likely the main cause
Back in the day a new AAA game was unlikely to run on old hardware while a new AAA game today (with some exceptions) can usually still run on 6+ year old hardware with decent performance.
Basically, even though high/mid end PCs are much more expensive now, the barrier to entry is still much lower than its ever been.
