Valve steamrolls ahead with 30 million milestone

30 million, let's start new country!

It’s hard to believe (or is it?) but Valve’s games distribution software, Steam, has reached a new fever. Recent stats just released from Gabe Newell’s fortress of solitude tell us that there are now a whopping 30 million active users of Steam. As more and more gamers shy away from boxes and stores, Valve’s vision of digital distribution has been given a well-deserved confirmation.

I’ve personally been using Steam from the get-go. I’ll never forget being forced to play the original Day of Defeat on Steam, and being horrified by having to rely on Steam servers. Nobody can deny the software was a bug-fest for quite a while after its release. But over the years it has settled down and is far more reliable than it was all those years ago.

As long as they keep having their weekend deals, I’ll always be loyal to Valve. As long as they pump out magnificent games like Half Life 2, Portal, Left 4 Dead etc, I’ll be there to use and promote their software.

Congrats on a massive milestone.

During the past 12 months the platform had year-over-year new user growth of 178%, pushing the total number of active accounts to over 30 million, with over 1,200 games now offered. Peak simultaneous player numbers were also up to over three million, with over six million unique gamers accessing Steam each day.

In addition to new user growth, Steam sales during the trailing 12 months increased by more than 200%, putting it on track for a sixth straight year of realizing over 100% year-over-year growth in unit sales. To meet this demand, the Steam infrastructure has been increased and now has ability to run at 400Gps, enough bandwidth to ship a digitized version of the Oxford English Dictionary 92.6 times per second.

Valve press release.