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Steam Usage and Catalog Stats

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Written by Backlinko Team

Steam Usage and Catalog Stats

Steam is a massive video game distribution platform.

Launched in 2003, the service has gained popularity among gamers across the world.

Today, it has 132 million monthly active users and a catalog of over 200,000 games.

Read on to find the latest Steam stats for 2026.

Here’s a quick overview of what you’ll find on this page:

Key Steam Stats

  • Steam has 132 million monthly active users.
  • 69 million people use Steam daily.
  • The Steam catalog in the US includes 234,984 games.
  • 20,018 games were added to Steam in 2025.
  • PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS holds the record for the most concurrent Steam players, peaking at 3.26 million.

Steam Monthly Active Users

The latest credible source states that Steam had 132 million monthly active users (MAUs) as of 2021. More recent data is not publicly available.

Steam Monthly Active Users

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:

Note: Steam discontinued disclosing monthly active user data in annual reports from 2022.
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

According to the latest available data, Steam has 69 million daily active users.

Steam has 69 million daily active users

That’s 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

42.04 million users concurrently accessed Steam at one point in January 2026, marking an all-time peak to date.

The average daily peak for January 2026 was 36.74 million concurrent users.

We’ve charted the growth in Steam’s peak concurrent user count since January 2007:

Date Steam Peak Concurrent Users
January 2007 313,000
January 2008 1.27 million
January 2009 1.68 million
January 2010 2.7 million
January 2011 3.52 million
January 2012 5.07 million
January 2013 6.61 million
January 2014 7.81 million
January 2015 8.6 million
January 2016 12.52 million
January 2017 14.37 million
January 2018 18.54 million
January 2019 17.53 million
January 2020 18.33 million
January 2021 25.43 million
January 2022 29.2 million
January 2023 33.08 million
January 2024 33.68 million
January 2025 39.34 million
January 2026 42.04 million

Source: SteamDB

Total Hours Played on Steam

The most recent data on total hours played comes from 2021. Steam users logged 37.87 billion hours of playtime that year.

Steam users logged 37.87 billion hours of playtime in 2021

Playtime has grown by 21% since 2020, outdoing the 10.2% growth in MAUs.

Source: Steam

How Many New Games Are Added to Steam Each Year?

A total of 20,018 games were released on Steam in 2025.

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 18,626
2025 20,018

Source: SteamDB

Steam’s US Game Library

Steam’s US library contains 234,984 titles across all categories.

This includes add-on content like mods and soundtracks.

146,012 games are available to play on Steam as of January 2026.

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.

Black Myth: Wukong and Palworld 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
Black Myth: Wukong 2.42 million
Palworld 2.1 million
Counter-Strike 2 1.86 million
Monster Hunter Wilds 1.38 million
Lost Ark 1.33 million
Dota 2 1.3 million
Cyberpunk 2077 1.05 million
ELDEN RING 0.95 million
Banana 0.92 million
New World: Aeternum 0.91 million
Hogwarts Legacy 0.88 million
Baldur’s Gate 3 0.88 million
Battlefield™ 6 0.75 million
Goose Goose Duck 0.7 million

Source: SteamDB

Steam Games by Genre

As of January 2026, the Steam library includes 119,237 indie games, more than any other genre. Action, casual, and adventure are also popular categories, each with over 80,000 titles.

We’ve charted the number of games on Steam by genre:

Note: Games can have multiple genre labels.
Genre Steam Games
Indie 119,237
Action 98,660
Casual 92,391
Adventure 88,878
Simulation 63,197
RPG 57,785
Strategy 53,073

Source: SteamDB

Steam Users with VR Headsets

Steam survey data suggests that 1.64% of users have VR headsets.

Among Steam users with VR headsets, 27.58% use Meta Quest 3.

Here’s a breakdown of Steam users who own VR headsets by model:

VR Headset Share of Steam Users
Meta Quest 3 27.58%
Oculus Quest 2 24.84%
Valve Index HMD 13.35%
Meta Quest 3S 9.46%
Oculus Rift S 4.52%
Pico 4 3.34%
HTC Vive 2.87%
Windows Mixed Reality 2.42%
Other 11.8%

Source: Steam

Steam Users by OS

The vast majority (66.6%) of Steam users access the platform on Windows 11 64 bit.

Here’s the full breakdown of Steam users by operating system:

Operating System Share of Steam Users
Windows 11 64 bit 66.6%
Windows 10 64 bit 27.51%
MacOS 26.1.0 64 bit 0.65%
Other 5.24%

Source: Steam

Video Cards among Steam Users

73.28% of Steam users on PC have a video card made by NVIDIA.

AMD and Intel account for a further 18.53%.

Here’s a comprehensive overview of PC video cards among the Steam user base:

Brand Share of Steam Users
NVIDIA 73.28%
AMD 18.53%
Intel 7.81%
Other 0.38%

Source: Steam

Conclusion

That’s all for our 2026 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.

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