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Steam now has over 100 million monthly active accounts

JaseC said:
I believe he's referring to PS+ and I think XBL Gold users being entitled to (oh-so-slightly) greater discounts during sale periods.
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Sure you get a bit extra off, but I don't think any sales have occurred where you have to be a subscriber to buy something, certainly not on a PS platform. Maybe Xbox has gold user only sales, I'm not sure.
 
I don't know about you guys, but I have a million steam accounts, and I log in to them every 90 days (it takes me all 90 days to log in to all of 'em!)

I'm sure that's probably what everyone else does too, for shits and giggles.
 
Well-deserved. Steam has ended any latent interest I had in any other platform (consoles or even alternative digital PC distributors) as Steam provides more content than I can even handle and works exactly as expected 99% of the time.

Keep it up, Valve.
 
Opiate said:
Many of those publishers absolutely should ignore Steam.

iOS has an even larger pool of users, even if we throw out the people who don't buy games. And yet, it's reasonable for many publishers to ignore iOS if the games they happen to be good at making don't sell well on iOS.

The same could have been said of the Wii. It had a 100M+ userbase; the largest Western publishers largely didn't care because the types of games that sold well on Wii weren't the types of games they focused on.

It may seem like I'm being picky here, but I think it's important for people to recognize that userbase size has become less important than demographic focus. The consoles actually have the smallest userbase size these days, but because the consoles have such a focused demographic with uniform tastes, a specific set of games are going to do especially well there, and won't be viable anywhere else.
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Console devs/publishers, especially Japanese ones, seem to be constantly surprised by how well their titles perform when they put them on Steam.
 
Kinthalis said:
I don't know about you guys, but I have a million steam accounts, and I log in to them every 90 days (it takes me all 90 days to log in to all of 'em!)

I'm sure that's probably what everyone else does too, for shits and giggles.
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I create one new account every time I buy a new game.
 
Excellent news. I'm so glad to see my favourite platform flourishing like it has.

Can't believe there are still people trying to shit on the news or spin it in a negative way, keep on keeping on guys!
 
hampton said:
That's right, there are about 190 million total Steam accounts now, which can be confirmed by the 32bit SteamID format. However, the install base for unique devices (not including mobile) is likely around just 90 million unique computers. This assumes the average number of Steam accounts created per user is 2.1 (190x10^6/2.1). I suspect the minimal average is 1.7, likely 2.0 +/- .1, and possibly even as high as 2.3.

As far as this "active" statistic goes, I don't think it's accurate as a comparative metric when analyzed alongside competing gaming platforms such as Microsoft's XBL or Sony's PSN. Such a comparison of "active accounts" is of more relevance when comparing Steam to the likes of similarly free social applications such as MSN or Facebook. I'd like to know how many unique Steam users there were in August (determined by unique IP address and/or email address) that played greater than five hours from the first to the last day of the month (five hours a month equates to about 10 minutes per day, a relatively low threshold). I would extrapolate from my 90 million unique device estimate that there are approximately 45 million maximum(+/- 10%) Steam users who play games for longer than five hours per month. I suspect half of all Steam users signed in at any given time don't spend a significant (>5hrs/month) amount of time playing games, rather they just sign-in to chat or, perhaps, have Steam set to automatically run and sign in on boot up.

PC only has so many users, and among that audience there are certainly some that exclusively play MMOs, League of Legends, or use Blizzard's Battle.net. There's probably a small but significant share of the market that uses Origin exclusively, too. I believe at this point Valve won't be able to significantly grow Steam in terms of gaining new customers unless PC gaming itself becomes more popular. Valve has already carved out their slice of the "pie" that is the PC gaming market, now the pie itself needs to grow in order for Steam to grow.
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Addressing your last paragraph Valve has reported almost exponential growth since Steam launched. And shows no signs at all of slowing down. And given that there are reportedly 711 million PC gamers in the world 100 million would be just 14% of the total market which leaves a huge market for potential growth. Also the PC gamer pie is growing so there isn't any worries on that front either.
 
I wonder about the join dates. How many people have been members since Steam was introduced to when they did the updating. I guess it's not that important. Banned users counts would also be interesting.

I also wonder how many people have not logged on in over a couple years as well. It's great that they have such a large user base. A month isn't that long. I know people who didn't log in for over a month. I took the same approach and deleted them off my list. I knew they wouldn't log back on.

If you're a user, you're a user, and you'll log on eventually.

http://numbers.kotaku.com/people-with-vac-bans-on-steam-the-valve-anti-cheat-syst-1621055788

VACBanned has logged 2,140,571 accounts or 1.29% of all Steam accounts.
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Northeastmonk said:
If you're a user, you're a user, and you'll log on eventually.

http://numbers.kotaku.com/people-with-vac-bans-on-steam-the-valve-anti-cheat-syst-1621055788
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Is there a point to this statistic? Not only is the data here flawed, the comparison to the US incarceration rate is ridiculous. This is so fun I'll deconstruct it a little.

Considering these same people can just get a new account, buy the games again and start the same vicious cycle rather than be taken out of society for a predetermined time period, why is this comparison even made? Also coming up with a figure of "total steam accounts" is not something realistically possible when data collection is clearly poor and from completely different dates.

Comparison of their number of VAC bans correct on August 13th 2014 (2,140,571) vs the total number of Steam Accounts determined by Ars Technica's Crawler correct on 16th April 2014 (186 million) is 1.151% - already lower than their apparently accurate data. Even then you'd need to account for how many accounts were created in the time span between 16th April 2014 and August 13th 2014. Judging by the increase of users even in active terms, that number of account increase would like be hugely significant bringing the percentage even further down. Data acquisition is not their forte.
 
That list of DRM-free Steam games is a little confusing in that the page says they're "launcher-free once installed". That's not DRM-free to me, if you need to install them to a new PC with the client, but maybe they're just not being clear enough, so I'll ask. Once you have the game files in the installation directory, can you then copy them off the PC and install them on any other PC without ever connecting to the internet or having the Steam client on that PC, or anything to do with Valve, forever?

If so, awesome. :)
 
MarionCB said:
That list of DRM-free Steam games is a little confusing in that the page says they're "launcher-free once installed". That's not DRM-free to me, if you need to install them to a new PC with the client
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I don't think it's that much different than needing an account on a website to download and install a game. Once you've installed it, you don't need to run the Steam client anymore, just like you don't need to be logged into the website in the other case.
 
Teeth said:
What are the principles that your estimations are based on? The principles of needing them to fit your narrative?

You can't possibly think that people are stupid enough to just swallow your horseshit numbers as viable, right?

In what universe is the average number of Steam accounts per user over two? You're saying there's a ton of people with four or five Steam accounts? Just for giggles? Because I haven't heard of anyone with more than one. Except that one guy in the Steam thread that couldn't possibly fathom having a bad game on his account so he abandoned the whole thing and started fresh.

You're actually postulating that people have multiple Steam accounts that they regularly log into during the month? Based on what?

EDIT: Well, except for Spekkeh above. I couldn't fathom a reason why though.
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I don't believe one would be "stupid" to accept that the average number of Steam accounts made per user is close to two, do you? I'm not sure what "narrative" you believe I've crafted, care to explain? Steam is growing, I use Steam myself almost every day and have been around to see the impressive work Valve has done to overhaul every aspect of their platform since the implementation of the Steam community in 2007. What's even more impressive to consider is the growing percentage of revenue Valve is bringing in from micro transactions through the Steam Market, funded by deposits into the Wallet. Relative to actual purchases of games, especially during those weeks when there are no releases from a major publisher, I would propose to you that the split between revenue from games purchased through the Store and funds deposited into the wallet to be used in the Market is about equal.

Anyway, lots of DOTA2 and CSGO players make extra accounts. Cheaters tend to make extra accounts too. Then there are extra accounts created during seasonal sale events (Winter 2011, etc). I'm sure if you've been around Steam for an appreciable length of time you've heard of all those bot accounts, which run off of scripts and are mostly known for sending phishing links, although there are also legitimate ones, like TrashBot. Last year there were also alternate accounts being made for the purpose of exploiting the Steam market, at a time prior to the implementation of buy-orders. You may very well have just one account, I assure you that there are indeed a "ton" of people with four or five accounts, though.

Zarx said:
Addressing your last paragraph Valve has reported almost exponential growth since Steam launched. And shows no signs at all of slowing down. And given that there are reportedly 711 million PC gamers in the world 100 million would be just 14% of the total market which leaves a huge market for potential growth. Also the PC gamer pie is growing so there isn't any worries on that front either.
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Then Valve is merely engaging in theatrics with such wording because there's no exponential growth, just growth. This is no different than the "monopoly" term that was thrown around a few pages back, Valve doesn't have a monopoly on the PC market. If any one company were to have a monopoly, it would be Riot Entertainment, but they don't really have one either. I'm also skeptical of the 711 million individuals on the planet who are privileged enough to own a computer. I suspect a large percent of that estimate is of easterners that play exclusively at LAN centers or in Internet Cafes, and are thus less likely to invest financially in gaming. Also, a quote from the GamesIndustry article explains "core gamers seem to be willing to spend more money than ever," so wouldn't such a thing explain the increase in revenue? That makes sense to me, just look at the micro transaction money being made by Riot, Valve, Blizzard, etc. Such an explanation doesn't require more customers, just that existing customers spend more money, and I suspect that's exactly what will happen with Steam. There's no getting around it, the PC gaming community must grow if Steam is to continue growing at the rate it has in the last decade. At this point it's safe to say almost all current PC gamers are aware of Steam and have already made an account if they ever will, Steam's growth will now have to come from new PC gamers, even with increased spending from existing gamers.
 
MarionCB said:
That list of DRM-free Steam games is a little confusing in that the page says they're "launcher-free once installed". That's not DRM-free to me, if you need to install them to a new PC with the client, but maybe they're just not being clear enough, so I'll ask. Once you have the game files in the installation directory, can you then copy them off the PC and install them on any other PC without ever connecting to the internet or having the Steam client on that PC, or anything to do with Valve, forever?

If so, awesome. :)
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This mode of thinking is so alien to me...

Is this really somehting you care about?
 
XiaNaphryz said:
I don't think it's that much different than needing an account on a website to download and install a game. Once you've installed it, you don't need to run the Steam client anymore, just like you don't need to be logged into the website in the other case.
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But do you need to do that whenever you install to a new PC? Activation is DRM. DRM-free is when you can download a set of files and then install them wherever and whenever you like with no contact required with the vender ever again. That's what I want to be clear about.

Kinthalis said:
This mode of thinking is so alien to me...

Is this really somehting you care about?
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Yes! It doesn't bother me if other people don't care, but I do. Some people are claiming they are DRM-free; I want to know if they really are.
 
The fun thing about these threads is watching the lengths people will go to to disprove or diminish Steam user numbers. As if the mere fact that everybody and their cat wants to release games on Steam, even traditionally stubborn japanese devs, isnt evidence enough that the platform is thriving.
 
alexandros said:
The fun thing about these threads is watching the lengths people will go to to disprove or diminish Steam user numbers. As if the mere fact that everybody and their cat wants to release games on Steam, even traditionally stubborn japanese devs, isnt evidence enough that the platform is thriving.
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Hampton in particular loves posting novels on the topic yet all I see is anecdotal evidence and "estimates" based off nothing but a gut feeling.

MarionCB said:
That list of DRM-free Steam games is a little confusing in that the page says they're "launcher-free once installed". That's not DRM-free to me, if you need to install them to a new PC with the client, but maybe they're just not being clear enough, so I'll ask. Once you have the game files in the installation directory, can you then copy them off the PC and install them on any other PC without ever connecting to the internet or having the Steam client on that PC, or anything to do with Valve, forever?

If so, awesome. :)
Click to expand...

Well, it's definitely possible to back up a DRM free game on Steam and install it on another computer that already has Steam installed. I'm not sure if it's possible to transfer and install the backup files to an offline computer that doesn't already have Steam.

It's a good question even if I'm personally OK with Steam's DRM.
 
MarionCB said:
But do you need to do that whenever you install to a new PC? Activation is DRM. DRM-free is when you can download a set of files and then install them wherever and whenever you like with no contact required with the vender ever again. That's what I want to be clear about.
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Once you've downloaded a DRM-free game on Steam, there's no need for Steam again even on a new PC unless the game in question requires registry settings to function correctly. That with GOG you can download an installer versus Steam wherein the download process doubles as the installation process is a matter of convenience, not rights management -- I mean, yes, you're required to sign into Steam to install the games, but you're also required to sign into GOG to download the redists in the first place and again in the future if you manage to lose them. Since early 2012, getting "banned" on Steam no longer prevents you from accessing your pre-existing library and Valve guarantees that Steam games will be continue to be accessible even in the event of the service being discontinued, so there's no remotely realistic hypothetical scenario in which the requirement of the Steam client to install games can be considered rights management -- short of the entire internet being deleted, it'll always be available and you'll always be able to install your games.
 
Astro Racer said:
But it still needs to be registered online and purchased through Steam. It's still DRM no matter how you spin it.

I was there when we switched from CD Keys to Steam and it still hurts.
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So GOG is DRM then. If logging onto a distribution plateform is DRM, every digital distribution in existence is DRM.

Welcome to the logic in any Steam numbers thread.
 
JaseC said:
Once you've downloaded a DRM-free game on Steam, there's no need for Steam again even on a new PC unless the game in question requires registry settings to function correctly. That with GOG you can download an installer versus Steam wherein the download process doubles as the installation process is a matter of convenience, not rights management -- I mean, yes, you're required to sign into Steam to install the games, but you're also required to sign into GOG to download the redists in the first place and again in the future if you manage to lose them.
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Thanks, that makes things a bit clearer. It seems a game has to not need to be installed in order to actually be DRM-free with Steam then. Otherwise, you need the Steam client to install it on a new PC. That's not as good as I was hoping.

I'm quite positive on Steam and I use it all the time; I just like to understand exactly how things are.
 
MarionCB said:
Thanks, that makes things a bit clearer. It seems a game has to not need to be installed in order to actually be DRM-free with Steam then. Otherwise, you need the Steam client to install it on a new PC. That's not as good as I was hoping.

I'm quite positive on Steam and I use it all the time; I just like to understand exactly how things are.
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hmm? Some games offer a non-steam alternatives downloads (like gunpoint for example) when you buy it from their sites but I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. I thought part of the point of steam was to be able to download games.
 
Astro Racer said:
GOG is DRM. I agree.

The only true DRM-free sale is when there is no account requirement to purchase or play.
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I think what you are looking for is called bittorrent actually.

Not sure how else you can buy and download something without having an account associated with you.
 
hampton said:
I don't believe one would be "stupid" to accept that the average number of Steam accounts made per user is close to two, do you? I'm not sure what "narrative" you believe I've crafted, care to explain? Steam is growing, I use Steam myself almost every day and have been around to see the impressive work Valve has done to overhaul every aspect of their platform since the implementation of the Steam community in 2007. What's even more impressive to consider is the growing percentage of revenue Valve is bringing in from micro transactions through the Steam Market, funded by deposits into the Wallet. Relative to actual purchases of games, especially during those weeks when there are no releases from a major publisher, I would propose to you that the split between revenue from games purchased through the Store and funds deposited into the wallet to be used in the Market is about equal.

Anyway, lots of DOTA2 and CSGO players make extra accounts. Cheaters tend to make extra accounts too. Then there are extra accounts created during seasonal sale events (Winter 2011, etc). I'm sure if you've been around Steam for an appreciable length of time you've heard of all those bot accounts, which run off of scripts and are mostly known for sending phishing links, although there are also legitimate ones, like TrashBot. Last year there were also alternate accounts being made for the purpose of exploiting the Steam market, at a time prior to the implementation of buy-orders. You may very well have just one account, I assure you that there are indeed a "ton" of people with four or five accounts, though.
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"Words words words I think the average is 2.1 accounts per user"

Excellent, as long as we're admitting that you're dealing in truthiness.

The feel of statistics.



hampton said:
I'm also skeptical of the 711 million individuals on the planet who are privileged enough to own a computer.
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Have you ever looked at smart phone sales? You might have an aneurysm.
 
Nzyme32 said:
Is there a point to this statistic? Not only is the data here flawed, the comparison to the US incarceration rate is ridiculous. This is so fun I'll deconstruct it a little.

Considering these same people can just get a new account, buy the games again and start the same vicious cycle rather than be taken out of society for a predetermined time period, why is this comparison even made? Also coming up with a figure of "total steam accounts" is not something realistically possible when data collection is clearly poor and from completely different dates.

Comparison of their number of VAC bans correct on August 13th 2014 (2,140,571) vs the total number of Steam Accounts determined by Ars Technica's Crawler correct on 16th April 2014 (186 million) is 1.151% - already lower than their apparently accurate data. Even then you'd need to account for how many accounts were created in the time span between 16th April 2014 and August 13th 2014. Judging by the increase of users even in active terms, that number of account increase would like be hugely significant bringing the percentage even further down. Data acquisition is not their forte.
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What would be more interesting would to see how many people actually had zero games in their library. I could imagine a few itunes accounts are the same way. I've signed up for plenty of MMOs and left them abandoned after a week of testing the game out.

There are many variables between a user creating an account and how long their service to that agreement is. Which means there's a lot of useless data there to consider.
 
hampton said:
I don't believe one would be "stupid" to accept that the average number of Steam accounts made per user is close to two, do you? I'm not sure what "narrative" you believe I've crafted, care to explain?
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You're going to have to provide some actual evidence that there are approximately 2 accounts per user, because you're making gigantic assumptions on this statistic with literally no proof.
 
Bluth54 said:
Dota 2 is their one big hit exclusive that's king of all exclusives.
Even the number 2 and 3 games on Steam, CS:GO and TF2, while technically available on consoles, are more or less exclusives since they have a bunch of extra free content not available on console versions.
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But what would happen if they release the other exclusive, you know the one i'm talking about.
 
epmode said:
Active = The account was signed in to at least once in the last 30 days. It's a far more concrete metric than anything from Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo.

And you shouldn't directly compare numbers from Valve to numbers from a console because the metrics aren't the same. The interesting and relevant statistic is the growth in active Steam accounts over time.
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As far as online numbers, maybe, but Nintendo's always been known to give sold-through to consumers as sales numbers instead of just shipped like Sony or MS.
 
I feel like I'm missing out on the real Steam experience by not having more than 1 account. I guess next sale I'll make a couple CSGO spare accounts to do my part for the cause.
 
scitek said:
I don't think Half-Life 3 would have anywhere near the big numbers Dota 2 does, personally.
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Not for concurrent players, sure. For sales? Both the main games sold over 10m, and that was mostly PC iirc. Of course it's been a while since we had a HL, so the ship might have saled for it...
 
Great news for Valve and gaming in general.

I have like 100 Steam games and it's an amazing service no doubt there. I don't have a beefy PC so I mostly buy indie games there and I really wish Sony would take some notes on Valve on how to do an open and user-guided store.

Congrats to Valve, they sure deserve it.

EDIT: just tried the new store front and it's a really impressive update. It really is a great way to deal with the flood of new titles being released. Great job.
 
idolminds said:
I'm pretty sure Valve makes no such guarantee.
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I don't know if they've made any official statement, but people have asked Valve and gotten responses like this:

4sa1Ln6.jpg
 
inm8num2 said:
I don't know if they've made any official statement, but people have asked Valve and gotten responses like this:

4sa1Ln6.jpg
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Valve may actually have something in place like that support person says. They make no guarantee for it, though.

Steam Subscriber Agreement said:
C. NO GUARANTEES

NEITHER VALVE NOR ITS AFFILIATES GUARANTEE CONTINUOUS, ERROR-FREE, VIRUS-FREE OR SECURE OPERATION AND ACCESS TO STEAM, THE SOFTWARE, YOUR ACCOUNT AND/OR YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS(S) OR ANY INFORMATION AVAILABLE IN CONNECTION THEREWITH.
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idolminds said:
Valve may actually have something in place like that support person says. They make no guarantee for it, though.
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While that could cover them in the case that they go out of business, I think that statement is there to alleviate them from the responsibility of having someone sue them over Steam going down for maintenance or other reasons.

Putting a clause in that prevents them from being sued if Steam goes out of business is sort of a zero sum thing...what are you going to get out of a bankrupted company?
 
idolminds said:
Valve may actually have something in place like that support person says. They make no guarantee for it, though.
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That is standard for almost any service. I suppose the proof is in the pudding of whether your games really stay with you. So far I haven't lost any games in almost 10 years via steam and functionality remains intact, even if I'd have to spend more time looking for a server or something. I have lost plenty to services being cancelled on other consoles though.

BPoole said:
Why do total active users or concurrent users on Steam threads get some people so upset?
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E-penis? A yearning to see something not be successful when it is? The only other places I see such reactions is in the npd threads or whatever they are called as well as "x is exclusive/not exclusive". It's just a constant defensive/offensive stance vs a preferred platform or team or vice versa
 
Astro Racer said:
GOG is DRM. I agree.

The only true DRM-free sale is when there is no account requirement to purchase or play.
Click to expand...
...
it's as much drm as a physical disc is drm
you need to pick up the disc to be able to install the game because you need the files

Just like with a physical disc nothing is stopping you from backing up the installer or installation for Gog onto a disc or hard drive, and install it from there on any pc.

I don't think you understand what drm means
DRM means digital rights managment,
If you want to copy it there is no copy protection , and when you install it there is no ownership validation.
so no DRM

You can share gog downloads and upload torrents for them freely as there is no DRM
 
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