Number of games released on Steam 2004-2024

The online gaming platform, Steam, was first released by the Valve Corporation in 2003. What started off as a small platform for Valve to provide updates to its games has turned into the largest computer gaming platform in the world. The platform initially released just 72 games in 2004, but this number has progressively risen in the ensuing years, reaching a staggering 12,068 in 2023, up from 9,394 in 2020.

Steam’s PC dominance

When you think of PC gaming, you automatically think of Steam. With such a wide range of games on offer from traditional online multiplayer shooters to farming simulators, there is something for every gaming taste on the platform. As a result, gamers flock to Steam in their millions, with the platform registering over 132 million monthly active users in 2021. The global nature of the platform can be seen by the wide range of languages spoken by its users. Whilst English remains the dominant language, almost a third of Steam users in 2023 stated that their main language was either Chinese or Russian.

Steam’s biggest games

Counter Strike: Global Offensive was the most popular game on Steam during 2023. The first-person shooter averaged almost 918,000 players per hour, a significant lead over its successor, Counter-Strike 2. The game also topped the 2023 list for peak number of concurrent players - CS:GO reached over 1.81 million players in a single hour in its peak, with Counter-Strike 2 claiming second place with nearly 1.4 million peak concurrent players.