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Steam Pushes Past 8 Million Concurrent Users During Summer Sale
Steam’s Summer Sale wraps up in just a little while, and it’s been a fruitful week for Valve. This week, concurrent usership passed 8 million a number of times, most recently at about noon Pacific on Sunday, June 29.
At its peak, Steam saw 8.02 million users of the at least 75 million users (as of 2013, reported in January 2014 at Steam Dev Days). What’s equally as fascinating is the list of the ten most played games over the past 24 hours.
- Dota 2 - 775,279
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - 163,421
- Team Fortress 2 - 78,227
- Civilization V - 73,866
- Football Manager 2014 - 71,083
- Garry’s Mod - 64,383
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 64,281
- Payday 2 - 63,814
- Borderlands 2 - 34,020
- Counter-Strike - 31,730
On the list are two free-to-play games, five Valve titles (including Garry’s Mod, which is built in Source and published by Valve), and one game released in the last year. Far and away the most popular game on the service is Dota 2, outpacing the second-place title by a margin of nearly five to one.
What isn’t as obvious in the numbers is just how much money Valve is making from Dota 2. The International Compendium alone has brought the prize pool for the upcoming event from $1.6 million to over $10 million.
Click to enlarge.
Compendium purchases at the $9.99 level contribute $2.50 to the prize pool. Additional point purchases (used for leveling up a user’s Compendium for better rewards) also contribute 25 percent to the prize pool.
By our calculation, the benefit to Valve for Compendium and point purchases alone is approximately $25 million. This is in addition to any other purchases related to Dota 2.
Our Take
There are two clear takeaways from this. First, PC gaming is absolutely alive and well. Second, if you had any doubt about the power of eSports, MOBAs, or free-to-play, this should put it to rest. Valve is making big money from Dota 2, and it’s not going to slow down any time soon.
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