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Steam Breaks Its Record For PC Players Online Once Again (ign.com) 41

Posted by BeauHD from the record-breaking dept.
Steam has broken its record for the most PC players online, with 38,366,479 concurrent gamers. As IGN notes, that figure is a million more than the previous record, set last month. From the report: So, what helped propel Steam to new heights over the weekend? All the usual suspects were in the top 10 most-played games on Valve's platform, including Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, Banana (yes, Banana has yet to split), and PUBG, with this year's Black Myth: Wukong, Satisfactory 1.0, Space Marine 2, and Valve's own Deadlock putting in work. Last week saw PlayStation exclusives God of War Ragnarok and Final Fantasy 16 both launch on Steam for the first time, which will have provided a modest boost, too.

The popularity of Steam is gradually increasing as Valve's vice-like grip on the PC market tightens ever further. Competitors such as the Epic Games Store and CD Projekt's GOG occupy a relatively small piece of the PC gaming pie, with Steam continuing to enjoy record-breaking success even amid perceived downturns in the video game industry. The release of Steam Deck is yet another platform on which Steam operates.
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Steam Breaks Its Record For PC Players Online Once Again More

Steam Breaks Its Record For PC Players Online Once Again

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  • A minuscule contribution to that total is no doubt the release of Satisfactory [wikipedia.org] 1.0. It's allegedly FPS factorio, which I haven't actually played because it's too expensive for what it is as far as I can tell from screenshots. You have enormous freedom to build, and a long production chain to unlock and discover. I stopped playing the Early Access version when I got nuclear power (not long after it became possible) and there's a fair amount of new content and features which have been added since which are of

    • You can sink many hundreds of hours into Factorio as well.
      As for how complex it can become, well, you can replicate music videos in it.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ormy ( 1430821 )
      Satisfactory, taken on its own, is a great game, it has exploration, automation, and a fair bit of variety, few bugs, etc etc. However when compared to other similar games, it doesn't hold up too well, especially considering the price. Personally I find it has the worst of both worlds between Factorio and Subnautica. Subjautica has simple crafting, barely any automation, but the exploration and story aspect are far superior to satisfactory IMHO. If automation and logistics is your thing, play Factorio,

      • Subnautica was fun, and a great experience overall, but also has a very small amount of actual content. You spend a lot of time making long slow journeys in the first part of the game, you grind getting through the tech tree, then suddenly you can go anywhere quickly and the game wraps up in no time. Hopefully the sequel has more locations.

        Satisfactory has modding. I used some mods in Early Access, they worked well. The fluid sink was super handy once I got to aluminum. The question now is how many users wh

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ormy ( 1430821 )
          I agree on all points, I guess for me it's just that I played both factorio and subnautica quite a bit before trying satisfactory. After a dozen hours or so in satisfactory I was left thinking that exploring the world wasn't as fun as it was in subnautica, and building the factory wasn't as fun as it was in factorio, so why am I playing? Maybe I should persevere and see if it grips me a bit more mid-to-late game, or I could try some mods. Probably if I had played satisfactory first I would have really en

          • Yeah, all that checks out. The map of Satisfactory hasn't changed since it was fully laid out (except for some resource locations) but with the introduction of useful purposes for SAM ore there is now significantly more story. I would really like to run into some alien architecture like in subnautica, which I don't expect actually, but it's still got more going on than it did before.

            If you don't find the building aspect compelling, Satisfactory is never going to be... its name :)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        It really is a matter of taste. I like both Factorio and Satisfactory and they are quite a bit different. I found Subnautica boring and tedious and stopped playing after a while.

  • Obligatory GOG plug (Score:4, Informative)

    by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Tuesday September 24, 2024 @01:31AM (#64811841)

    Might be a good time to consider buying your games on a platform that gives you less DRM. Like www.gog.com perhaps? There are others, I'm just plugging the one I know about and use.

    • I never bought software that required an online connection for anything, even if only a license key check at installation.
      Who knows how long an online service will be available?
      I'd buy Cities Skylines for instance if I could install and play offline (and I don't mean Steam offline mode).
      All the DLC what makes it actually good is still quite expensive though. If I could then get the source code to fix any bugs and gameplay issues would be another matter.

      I like the idea of the proposed law forcing commercial

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by antdude ( 79039 )

        I always test non-Internet apps to see if they require Internet to work. If they don't work offline, then I don't want them.

    • Steam is more than just purchasing games and a question of DRM. Steam provides matchmaking, chat, leaderboards, it provides overlays for recording and sharing content, heck for those people in VR it provides a whole API set that VR games depend upon.

      Gog is great for offline single player games and I use it a lot for that, but the reality is many games won't ever show up on that platform, and if they do, ... they will somehow still be tied to Steam.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Steam is more than just purchasing games and a question of DRM. Steam provides matchmaking, chat, leaderboards, it provides overlays for recording and sharing content, heck for those people in VR it provides a whole API set that VR games depend upon.

        Gog is great for offline single player games and I use it a lot for that, but the reality is many games won't ever show up on that platform, and if they do, ... they will somehow still be tied to Steam.

        I have no issues with Steam, however I'll also plug GOG because they're a good company that makes a good product.. More over they do the right thing by their customers.

        That being said, Steam is largely the same, when it comes to DRM, Steam actually highlights when it's destructive in a nice, easy to see, burned orange box (I.E. Denuvo, activation limits, et al.) making it easy for me to avoid buying that game.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by m00sh ( 2538182 )

          however I'll also plug GOG because they're a good company that makes a good product..

          ALY35B64A7B3725FUC expires in 24 HOUR

        • That being said, Steam is largely the same, when it comes to DRM, Steam actually highlights when it's destructive in a nice, easy to see, burned orange box (I.E. Denuvo, activation limits, et al.) making it easy for me to avoid buying that game.

          They will allow publishers to change that after the fact though. Ghostwire Tokyo burned me because as a Bethesda game I knew it was going to be a rough ride but as it launched without Denuvo I thought I'd put my money where my mouth was and support decisions I like. And then the free DLC update dropped that came with Denuvo. And because Steam is anti-consumer these days you can't refuse the update. Some publishers have taken to working around Steam's limitations and adding the prior build as a "beta" you ca

      • That's cool and all, but you're still housing all your games on somebody else's service, and we've never tested what happens if they shut down completely. For some folks that isn't a problem. For others it is. Overall we'd be better off if people wanted ownership of what software they actually buy versus just a license which can lose its value as soon as some online service or store becomes unavailable.

        • The shutdown concept has been partially tested. I have Steam games in my library which have been removed from sale. I have Steam games which have been legally banned. So far Valve have shown themselves to be a good actor here.

          I do have games I can't play anymore. I only recently found Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 - I don't own a CD drive. The idea that simply purchasing something without DRM means it will work in perpetuity is a short sighted view that fails to acknowledge the actual difficulty of mainta

  • I was too busy with real life. :(

  • I guess his tweet about Steam dying and his undying support of Epic Games aged about as well as his most recently Borderlands movie https://x.com/DuvalMagic/statu... [x.com]

  • Said no one ever. If I could just use Steam and do away with all these crappy forced portals and account logins I'd be satisfied. Steam give a fair balance of user freedom, ease of use and a touch for evil overload DRM crap that seems necessary. GOG like ownership is preferable but Steam does also provide functionality just owning a game outright does no. Optin into Betas, Early Access, managing your game library, forums, messenger etc
  • Most popular game on steam right now is Counterstrike 2, with ~800k players. 2nd place is Dota 2. Both came out over a decade ago. Where are the new good games? I haven't been following, is it like music where the last decade has been trash?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      Counterstrike 2 came out last year.

      Just because it has CS in the title and was based on earlier games doesn't mean it's a decades-old game itself.

      DOTA 2, granted.

      Where are the new good games? I don't know. Name a competitor to CS in the last decade and that will answer itself. "Not as popular" is often the answer or even "Not made for PCs, but for consoles" in many cases.

  • So, we don't want online games but celebrate millions being online and tracked.

    Steam offline mode is so cumbersome to use. If the internet goes out and you want to game, steam groans and groans and takes 10 times longer to start up. Then, again it groans and groans when you want to go into offline mode. Makes no sense. It should be faster when the internet is down to start up.

    The other launchers are probably worse except for GOG.

    • I've never had offline mode work when I needed it to work. If the steam client had a pending update, offline mode is not available. And the steam client updates itself once a week at least so if like me you're an occasional and weekend PC gamer then the client ALWAYS had a pending update. Same for the games. The steam ticket expires and requires a refresh which only happens next time you play it, so if the internet is out and now feels like a good time to catch up on that game you put away a month or two ag

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