Steam smashes past 30 million concurrent users for first time ever

Gaming is very much in fashion right now, it seems. So much so that in the last 24 hours, Steam broke its concurrent player record - smashing through into the 30 million mark (thanks, GameLuster).

According to Steam stats tracking site SteamDB, the record was broken at around 3pm UK time yesterday, 23 October, when a whopping 30,032,005 players were seen online all at the same time. Clearly, a relaxing Sunday full of gaming was the plan for a lot of people.

One of Steam’s latest (and greatest) titles is Trombone Champ - a hilarious music game where players have to control a trombone with their mouse. Take a look at some chaotic gameplay footage below.

GameLuster writes that the previous record was set on 3 April this year, when Steam had 29.99 million concurrent players. Still an impressive number for sure, but yesterday’s surge has knocked it out of the park.

So, what exactly happened to make so many people come online at the same time? Well, that’s a little bit of a mystery. On Steam’s current ‘Most Played’ chart, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is sat at the top of the list, having achieved a peak of 1,050,184 concurrent players in the last 24 hours. This is followed by Dota 2, with a peak of 752,713 concurrent players, and then PUBG: Battlegrounds with 442,148. All very fun games, no doubt, but none of them are by any means new releases.

You might think that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II could have something to do with it - although the full game isn’t out while 28 October, players who preordered it got access to the campaign last week. However, in the last 24 hours, the game’s concurrent player peak was just 57,497, and while that’s still good, it pales in comparison to the top three. There’s no doubt that MWII's concurrent player number is going to surge when multiplayer goes live later this week though, so watch this space - we might end up seeing Steam break yet another record.