Steam passes 14 million concurrent users for first time ever

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That's a lot of people playing video games.

Steam has surpassed 14 million concurrent users. The milestone was hit early January 7 and peaked at 14,207,039, according to Steam's stats page. It's now back to the mid-to-high 13 millions.

Unsurprisingly, Dota 2 was the game with the highest concurrent player count at the peak today with 951,942 concurrent players. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive followed with 675,195 players, while Grand Theft Auto V rounded out the top three with 116,230. 

It's worth underlining that concurrent users isn't the same as concurrent players. The 14,207,039 number includes users who have Steam running in the background while they're doing other things or away from the PC altogether. Still, the figure is one measurement of Steam's growth over time.

In 2012, Valve hit 5 million concurrent users. That's an impressive 9-million user growth over five years. 2 million of those users came in the past year, as Steam passed 12 million concurrent users in January 2015. 

It's no coincidence that January is a time when Valve routinely hits user milestones—with just a few weeks after Christmas and its Winter Sale, more players are sure to have adopted the gaming service. At last report in 2015, Valve claimed 125 million active Steam users.

Mat Paget