Steam hit a new concurrent player peak thanks to coronavirus

Over the weekend, Steam hit over 20 million concurrent players, marking the largest number of players using Valve’s gaming service in history so far.

According to steamdb, this new player count of exactly 20,313,451 was reached around 3pm on Sunday the 15th of March, 2020. This marks the first time Steam has reached over 20 million active players at once, with records previously only reaching 19 million.

For comparison, Steam averaged 16,000,000 concurrent players during February 2020 and 15,000,000 during January 2020.

#Steam has just reached a new concurrent online user record of 20 million, with 6.2 million currently in-game, likely due to many people staying at home due to the #coronavirus.https://t.co/bzLMfMOJvD#COVID19

— SteamDB (@SteamDB) March 15, 2020

As of 12:24pm GMT on March 16th, there are 17,730,454 players currently using Steam, with 834,466 of them playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, 530,053 of them playing DOTA 2, and 418,449 playing PUBG.

The most likely cause for this new surge of players is the coronavirus pandemic that’s currently rocking the world. Several governments have advised people to stay at home and avoid contact with others and, when you’re stuck at home, the best way to distract yourself is by playing some videogames.

(Note: The ‘playing videogames’ part isn’t official government advice.)

The 2019 novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, has recently been classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organisation. At the time of publishing, there have been 153,517 cases and 5,735 deaths confirmed globally.

If you start displaying symptoms of COVID-19, the smartest thing to do is to isolate yourself from others and remain at home until you recover. If you start feeling worse, seek medical advice as soon as possible.

Maintaining good hygiene practices, such as washing your hands regularly and covering your mouth when you cough and sneeze, can help to prevent the spread of most viruses and keep yourself and others safe from infection.

For any concerns regarding COVID-19, you can visit the World Health Organization website to check on the status of the outbreak and educate yourself on related issues.