Steam has rung in the new year by breaking concurrent player count records once again, and it's not just one, either. I'm sure Valve will be thrilled.
As spotted by Bluesky user Alejandro LL, Steam has broken its concurrent user (CCU) count record again, managing to reach a whopping 41.816 million users online at the same time and leaping past October's record high into the bargain.
Not only that, but a new record of users concurrently in games on Steam has been set as well, with that figure reaching almost 13.4 million as compared to March's 13.2 million record. Admittedly, these numbers aren't huge jumps, but they're still the highest on record.
As for why the record has been smashed, Valve almost certainly owes that to the ongoing Steam Winter Sale, which ends today at 10am Pacific and which features huge discounts on a number of popular games (as well as smaller discounts on newer or more evergreen titles).
Since many of 2025's best-selling games on Steam are live-service titles as well, it's not unreasonable to assume that players are flocking to those games over the holiday period, which is probably why the concurrent in-game player count record has...
