Steam, in spite of its competition, remains to be the most popular storefront on PC.
Granted, years of headstart is hard to upend, but the perks of getting your games on Epic or over at GOG.com don't appear to make a dent on Steam's numbers. As reported by GameRant, Steam's numbers continue to grow, breaking their concurrent player count record from the previous year. With the Holiday Break almost over, many players have gone to Steam to seek solace from the impending return to work. On January 2, the final day of most people's holidays, Steam tallied almost 28 million players – 27,942,458 concurrent users to be exact. That's half a million more compared to a record set in November 2021, which was when the platform reached 27 million for the first time.
These record-setting numbers aren't surprising – Steam has been the platform of choice by many players on PC, after all. However, it's worth noting how these numbers don't seem to decelerate in spite of the efforts of its competitors: Epic Games and CD Projekt Red. The Epic Games Store offered amazing games for free on their Holiday Mystery Gift Giveaway, even going so far as releasing for free the Tomb Raider Trilogy for one week at the tail end of the event. It appears that while many players do redeem their free copies on Epic's platform, they still prefer to play their games on Valve's.
On the other side, platforms such as CD Projekt Red's GOG.com have very-specific benefits that still don't appear to encourage gamers to buy and play their games on their platform. In GOG.com's case, the storefront offers DRM-free versions of games, allowing players to actually own copies of games – as opposed to Steam where players are essentially on leasing their games.
Just how long can Steam maintain its lead?
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