Steam users, games, and Holiday Sale stats revealed

Business

January 16, 2014

During day 1 of Valve’s ongoing Steam Dev Days conference, the company revealed that Steam has now reached 75 million active monthly users.

Back in late October 2013, Valve reported 65 million active users, and 45 million in September 2013 – so this explosive growth is very impressive indeed.

Based on latest available figures, this makes Steam larger than the Xbox Live subscriber base which Microsoft pegs at 48 million (this includes Windows Live users who are now under the umbrella of Xbox Live).

EA Origin boasts 50 million users, while Sony’s PlayStation Network dominates with 110 million accounts.

The Steam for Mobile app now reportedly has over 7 million users.

Game releases on Steam

Game releases have surged in 2013 compared to previous years, showing a 66% year-on-year increase. This is likely due to the vastly expanded indie market, following the introduction of Steam Greenlight.

Over 10% of the 2013 games released were early-access titles.

Number of games released on Steam:

2011: 323
2012: 382
2013: 636

Steam Holiday Sale 2013

During the 2013 Steam Holiday Sale:

1.7 million in-game items were handed out;
2 million Snow Globe trades were made; and
2 million daily market transactions took place.

Steam business in 2014

Discussing business improvements in 2014, Valve has plans to add support for new currencies – no mention of the South African rand, though. The new currencies are for Australia, Thailand, Canada, Norway, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Malaysia, India, Singapore, Ukraine, and Japan.

Valve is also planning to allow money transfers between Steam Wallets in 2014.