Are you looking for the user and revenue stats of Steam? If so, here you will find the daily, and monthly active Steam users, revenue, and other key stats for Steam.
Back in 2003, when all of us were busy lining up at the local GameStop and other video game shops, a revolution was taking place in the digital gaming industry.
Steam, one of the most famous game distribution platforms, was launched in the year 2003 by Valve Corporation. Originally released as a platform for distributing game updates for their games, Steam, later on, evolved to become a digital marketplace for third-party game developers and publishers to distribute their games and software.
Steam has evolved to become a platform for gamers, and both independent & major game developers to connect, socialize & trade in different game titles.
Let us see what made Steam such a global giant in the gaming industry and become a majority shareholder in the gaming market worldwide.
Quick Facts About Steam:
- Now in 2024, Steam has around 120.4 Million active players monthly.
- There are more than 69 Million active players daily across Steam, with 33 Million concurrent players worldwide as of 2024.
- In 2021 alone, Steam was able to deliver 32.9 Exabytes of content data; almost equivalent to 330 Million people downloading 100 GB of data.
- More than 2.6 million purchases are made on Steam each month.
- Steam saw an 18% growth in revenue compared to 2022 & a 14.35% increase in concurrent players since 2022.
Steam User Growth Statistics 2013 – 2024
Steam as a platform has managed to capture a majority of the gaming industry market and hence has a huge number of users. The collective time spent by users on their play time was a whopping 38 Billion hours in 2021 alone – which amounts to 4.3 Million years of playtime.
Let us have a look at the number of concurrent users across the years Steam has managed to gather.
| Year | Steam Users (in Millions) |
| 2013 | 7.8 |
| 2014 | 8.59 |
| 2015 | 12.39 |
| 2016 | 14.37 |
| 2017 | 18.52 |
| 2018 | 17.46 |
| 2019 | 17.95 |
| 2020 | 25.41 |
| 2021 | 27.94 |
| 2022 | 28.86 |
| 2023 | 33.05 |
| 2024 | 30.18 |
(Source: Steam DB)
As we see, in total there has been a 79% growth in the number of users on the platform since 2013 with the platform hitting an all-time peak of 30 Million concurrent users in 2024.
With all these users in question, surely Steam as a platform must be minting money, and how much does the parent company Valve make?
Let us look into it.
How Does Steam Generate Revenue?
A majority of the revenue Steam earns is via the commission it earns from the sale of each game sold on its platform.
Steam takes a 30% cut when a game is sold. If a game development studio or the publisher manages to sell games worth $10-50 Million dollars then they are charged only 25% of the entire earning and anything above that gets charged at 20% of the total sale value.
Steam earned over $13 Billion in 2022, 10 was from the Steam store.
Steam also allows for the sale of in-game cosmetic items that are created on its in-house platform via Steam Workshop, which allows Steam to have a share of as much as 95% of the revenue made from the sales.
What is Steamworks?
Steam has also evolved from merely a platform for game distribution to a game Dev platform. Steam provides a set of tools and services, under Steamworks, for developers and publishers to help them build and distribute their games on the Steam platform.
To use these APIs and tools, the game devs are expected to pay a small green light fee if they are a first-time user. Usually, game devs with prior games on the platform do not need to pay these fees.
How Much Does a Steam Deck Cost?
Steam as a platform is not accessible on consoles and handheld gaming devices platform, which has prevented Steam from tapping into a potential platform for a very long time.
Thus, Valve decided to venture into the handheld devices market with the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck comes in three different versions that cost $399 with 64 GB Storage, $529 for 256 GB & $649 for 512 GB, respectively.
Since handheld devices are cheaper compared to full-on gaming consoles or PCs, they open up a whole new set of gaming customers to address.
In the first 90 minutes after its announcement, 110,000 Steam Deck consoles had been pre-booked already.
How Much Does Valve Earn From Steam?
Steam uses a tiered system to earn revenue from different game sales. Valve takes 30% of the revenue when a game launches and allows an additional 5% for the company to keep for themselves if their games bring in over $10 Million in sales through Steam.
Top Games on Steam
Steam is the official platform for a lot of Game distributors who officially release their games on Steam alone, due to Steam having a huge organic user base. Steam has a huge number of AAA-rated game titles exclusive to its platform, and at the same time, many indie and stand-alone independent game developers also get access to the same audience as these big game studios.
Top 5 Most Popular Games on Steam
Among the 5 most popular games on Steam based on the number of followers and players, PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS has the title of the most played game with an all-time peak of 3.25 Million players at the same time. Let us look at the most-played games of 2024 on Steam.
| Game | All-time peak (in Millions) |
| PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS | 3.25 |
| Lost Ark | 1.32 |
| Counter-Strike: Global Offensive | 1.82 |
| Dota 2 | 1.29 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 1.01 |
(Source: Steam DB)
Top 5 Most Sold Games on Steam
Not all popular games have equally successful sales. Steam has seen some great as well as underdog titles that have generated a huge number of sales over the years.
Among them, PUBG stands at the top with a total of 69 Million copies sold.
Let us look at the top-selling games of all time on Steam.
| Game | All-time peak (in Millions) |
| PUBG | 67.9 |
| GTA V | 53.8 |
| Elden Ring | 36.3 |
| Left 4 Dead 2 | 35.1 |
| Counter-Strike: Global Offensive | 29.4 |
(Source: Video Games Sales Wiki)
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Steam vs Epic Games Store
The gaming community has two major competing platforms for game distribution – Steam and a more recent entry, Epic Games Store.
Both of these platforms only cater to PC platforms and have their special features that keep a variety of users of gamers and game developers engaged via various programs such as giveaways, game sales, or their set of game development tools that keep updating to cater to the needs of the users.
The Number of Titles in The Library
Steam takes the lead in the number of game titles on its platform, with a reported 80,000+ games listed on its platform as of 2024, whereas its near competitor Epic Games Store only has a total of around 1870 titles on its platform for sale.
Out of these titles, some are exclusive only to their respective platforms.
While games like Fortnite, and Rocket League are available only on the Epic Games Store, certain titles like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Team Fortress 2 are exclusive to Steam.
Steam also does not limit itself to only gaming content as it acts as a host for certain software products as well as content for Steam Deck and Streaming content such as movies, thus explaining its huge Library collection.
Game Prices and Sales
The base price of games for both the platforms – Steam and Epic Games Store remains the same since it’s the game publisher that sets the price, however, it is a difference in how both the platforms deal with giveaways and sales.
Epic Games Store often gives away free games under the “Get a Free Game Every Week” feature, which gives away a particular game title for free for a particular period, after which the price for the title goes back to its original price. Certain AAA-rated titles like GTA V, Hitman, Tomb Raider, etc. became, more popular and accessible thanks to Epic Games Store’s decision to give them to users for free.
Since the schedule for these games is already set, gamers can accordingly mark their calendars. Steam too does offer free games on its platform. However, for those that are free for a limited time, after the free period has ended, the user has to pay for the game to continue playing, essentially making it a free trial game only.
Developer Tools
Both Steam and Epic Games Store cater to game developers as well. In comparison, both of them offer a comprehensive set of tools for game developers and publishers to be able to improve the different aspects of their games.
Epic Games Store offers Unreal Engine for free, which is an industry benchmark platform for the development and deployment of game environments. The Unreal Engine’s starter Developer tools help you navigate the intricacies of game development easily through its tutorials and assets to improve your projects and publish them in the marketplace.
Upon publishing, you can manage your project through the Developer Portal offered by Epic Games and manage your project and its finances accordingly. Epic Games Store also takes a meager 12% cut from published projects on its Marketplace.
On the other hand, Steam also has a set of developer tools under the Steamworks framework, which allows the developers to develop their games and provide additional support to optimize them for the Steam Platform.
However, it is not free and requires a small green light fee for a first-time publisher. Steam also takes an average of 30% of the total revenue that is obtained by the game publisher from its sales.
Conclusion: Key Stats, Revenue, and Active Steam Users
Despite its different shortcomings, it is safe to assume Steam has gone on to capture the market space with a maximum market share in the game distribution industry. With its huge library and even greater user base of close to 30 Million users, which is more than the population of the entire country of Australia.
For a service that launched almost 2 decades ago, it continues to be the gargantuan platform that is far ahead of its closest competitor and will not be losing out on its clout anytime soon.
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About Author: Vishesh Gupta
Seasoned Professional with 15 years of experience in Sales and Marketing. Entrepreneur, Consultant and Blogger helping people earn through jobs and blogging. Experienced Hosting Reviewer who likes to collect detailed info about existing players and share it with my audience. Previously worked with leading Banks and Telecom Companies.
I completed my Masters in Management with specialization in Finance and Marketing.
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