Steam sets new player records for the second week in a row

M Alzamora Published 29/03/2020

Valve’s Steam platform has continued its run of form, breaking its record for concurrent users for the fourth time in four weeks.

The software developer and digital distributor surpassed its previous record by more than 300,000 people, set the day before on March 28.The immensely popular storefront seemed unphased by the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s battle royale mode as it plowed through previous record with ease.

Steam was heavily propped up by two of its first-party offerings in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2. While Counter-Strike came within just several thousand players of its own recent record, Dota 2 continued to snowball off the back of a massive week.

The MOBA hasn’t slowed down since players began repopulating its severs in mid-February. Dota 2’s growth has steadily increased, ending in a week where it reached some of the highest player counts the game has recorded since September 2019.

Classic games led Steam’s record-breaking weekend

The continued quarantines around the globe have worked in Steam’s favor, but the developer hasn’t been just standing by. There’s been several developments amoing Valve’s own games, including what looked to be a real-life battle pass from Dota 2’s Chinese distributor and Valve’s regional partner, Perfect World.

While many Dota fans had been hoping Valve would release this year’s TI Battle Pass early in light of COVID-19, it looks like the rest of the world will have to watch from afar as Chinese players rack up some pretty cool rewards.

Readers can find out more about China’s mysterious Battle Pass by clicking on the photo below.

Some of those players may have turned to Valve’s first-person shooter, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, putting the game within a mere 4,000 players of its all-time high more than eight years after its release.

There was more news in store for CSGO fans, too. Earlier this week, Valve left what amounts to confirmation that Counter-Strike’s move to the Source 2 engine is coming sooner rather than later according to our in-depth breakdown available here.

Sunday’s have become big days for both gamers and Valve. Counter-Strike has broken several records since December, with all but a few of them coming on Sunday mornings. Both CSGO’s record-breaking weekends and three months of solid growth from Dota 2 have strengthened Valve’s position heading into the Summer release window.

For now, it looks like Steam is the only big game in town.

M Alzamora

About M Alzamora

There are few things that writer M Alzamora loves more in life than Pokemon. And there are even fewer things that she loves more than her favorite Pokemon, Eevee. But M’s appreciation for gaming isn’t just limited to Nintendo’s famous pocket monsters. She’s interested in every type of game across every genre of gaming, and she has the credentials to prove it. M’s work has also been seen on Working Classicists and gaming sites.

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