Valve's Steam service has once again hit a new all-time high of online concurrent players, and it's likely due to a number of different factors. Earlier today, SteamDB recorded that the service had 36,928,521 players online. Officially, Steam's own numbers show that it had a peak of 36,905,706 players today. Both of those numbers beat the previous record of 36,354,393 concurrent players, which was set in mid-March of 2024.
The biggest factor for this new online player peak is that it happened in the middle of the Steam Summer Sale. The vast majority of games on the service have at least some price cut, with some going as deep as 95 percent off their normal prices. The sale is scheduled to last until July 11, so it's possible we could see that concurrent player record number go even higher next weekend.
Some of the games on Steam have gotten some extra boosts in players due to factors other than their lower price. Microsoft announced earlier this week that Forza Horizon 4 would be delisted from digital stores on December 15. That announcement, plus an 80 percent discount, caused the game to get a huge boost in both sales and online players.
Palworld, which became a massive hit on Steam earlier this year, just released its first major content update earlier this week, with new "Pals," a new location and other features. As a result, its online player numbers went from over 31,000 concurrent gamers earlier this week to over 140,000 players on Sunday, according to SteamDB.
Another possible factor in the increase in players is the launch of Game Recording for Steam. This new feature lets Steam players capture gameplay footage and offers ways to edit the videos and then share them with others. The feature even works with Valve's own Steam Deck portable gaming PC.
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