Support us on Patreon to keep GamingOnLinux alive. This ensures all of our main content remains free for everyone. Just good, fresh content! Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal. You can also buy games using our partner links for GOG and Humble Store.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Valve's Steam just seem to be unstoppable lately, with another huge user milestone achieved over the weekend.

For the first time, the concurrent user count managed to rise over 38 million! 38,367,277 to be exact, according to the numbers on SteamDB. At the time 12,270,218 players were actually in-game.

Going over the data at the time these were the most-played games:

  • Counter-Strike 2
  • PUBG: Battlegrounds
  • Dota 2
  • Black Myth: Wukong
  • Banana
  • NAKARA: BLADEPOINT
  • Apex Legends
  • Source SDK Base 2007 (GTA V FiveM - multiplayer mod)
  • Grand Theft Auto V
  • Satisfactory


Pictured - Black Myth: Wukong

Looking back over the history of Steam breaking user counts, it's clear that 2024 has been an insane year for the growth of Steam overall. This makes the 5th time just this year that the online count has been shattered and smashed through:

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Misc, Steam, Valve
15 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
See more from me
9 comments

shimmy Sep 23
So that's the entire population of Poland being online on Steam, pretty much.
finaldest Sep 23
Steam is going from strength to strength.

I did not expect to see Satisfactory on that list but I guess that is my fault .and I guess many were waiting for the 1.0 release. I highly recommend playing this game however just be warned it is a time sink.
ShadMessa Sep 23
at least 5 million are bot account.
CatKiller Sep 23
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
For comparison, Epic last reported their EGS peak CCU as 13.2 M in 2021, when their MAU was 62 M and they had 194 M total users. They've got 2023 reports for MAU (75 M) and total users (270 M).

Valve last reported their MAU for 2021 as 132 M; they haven't reported on the total number of users in a long time.
Jarmer Sep 23
Steam is just an absolute juggernaut in the space. ESPECIALLY for us linux gamers. There's really no true competition is there? I think it would nice for them to have true competition, but I just don't see that happening anytime soon.

I mean, I absolutely love Steam, but competition is good for the market!

Quoting: CatKillerFor comparison, Epic last reported their EGS peak CCU as 13.2 M in 2021, when their MAU was 62 M and they had 194 M total users. They've got 2023 reports for MAU (75 M) and total users (270 M).

Valve last reported their MAU for 2021 as 132 M; they haven't reported on the total number of users in a long time.

lol what on earth do all these acronyms mean!
LoudTechie Sep 23
Quoting: JarmerSteam is just an absolute juggernaut in the space. ESPECIALLY for us linux gamers. There's really no true competition is there? I think it would nice for them to have true competition, but I just don't see that happening anytime soon.

I mean, I absolutely love Steam, but competition is good for the market!

Quoting: CatKillerFor comparison, Epic last reported their EGS peak CCU as 13.2 M in 2021, when their MAU was 62 M and they had 194 M total users. They've got 2023 reports for MAU (75 M) and total users (270 M).

Valve last reported their MAU for 2021 as 132 M; they haven't reported on the total number of users in a long time.

lol what on earth do all these acronyms mean!
The stupid thing is that I seriously get the impression that Steam has a lower relative market share on Linux than on Windows.
All the stores work on both, but while most windows users seem to mostly stick to Steam and the Epic Store, I see them using GOG, the web, itch.io, various repos and other stores.
I only have anecdotal evidence(they don't publish the relevant numbers directly and I'm too tired to figure out how to approach this with available information) for this, but if that is the case they're not especially a juggernaut for Linux gamers.
CatKiller Sep 23
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: Jarmerlol what on earth do all these acronyms mean!

Epic Games Store
Concurrent Users
Monthly Active Users
Quoting: CatKillerFor comparison, Epic last reported their EGS peak CCU as 13.2 M in 2021, when their MAU was 62 M and they had 194 M total users. They've got 2023 reports for MAU (75 M) and total users (270 M).
The big question there is always, how many of them are playing anything other than Fortnite?
CatKiller Sep 24
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: Purple Library GuyThe big question there is always, how many of them are playing anything other than Fortnite?

I expect that most of the EGS CCUs aren't playing anything at all, just like with Steam - Steam had 38 M people on, but only 12 M of them were playing a game at the time.

But, yeah, in terms of revenue it's mostly Fortnight for EGS. $310 M for sales of third-party games out of $950 M total in 2023; we learned from the Epic vs Apple trial that Valve makes about the same amount from third-party games through Steam as they make from their own games.

Edit: the latest figure I've found says that 78% of Fortnite players are on console, so third-party PC games are an even smaller chunk of Epic's revenue than you'd see by just looking at PC EGS numbers.


Last edited by CatKiller on 24 September 2024 at 6:26 pm UTC
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
Login / Register


Or login with...
Sign in with Steam Sign in with Google
Social logins require cookies to stay logged in.