https://store.steampowered.com/charts/
Peak Online: 37,185,128
Date: 2026-05-19
A new record has been reached. And I feel like Saubnatica 2 and Forza Horizon 6 are partially responsible for this new peak. I don’t see anyone talking or posting about this new logged in users of Steam.
EDIT SECOND TIME: Today it just got a new record again!:
Peak Online: 39,532,653
Date: 2026-05-23
After killing the competition with exclusivity deals and shoehorning itself into physical copies as DRM.
I know you weren’t born when that happened, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Steam / Valve doesn’t do exclusivity deals.
Except they kinda did.
They pay publishers to use Steam as DRM for physical releases.
If you wanted to play the game on PC, you needed Steam.
Publishers used Steam for physical releases because Valve takes no fee for CD keys, so it was cheaper for them.
First, this is not what you said earlier, its a different statement. Also… where do you get that Valve pays publishers to use Steam as DRM? And therefore forces them a kind of exclusivity deal? No, Valve does not do that.
They did.
They don’t need to anymore because they killed the market of physical discs for PC games.
I ask again: Where did you get that idea from? Any source other than “trust me bro” statement? Valve did not, unless you can proof your extraordinary claim with an extraordinary source.
My own physical copy of Hitman Absolution. And the Steam code required to play a game with two physical discs.
Because Steam was used as DRM.
Got a source on them paying publishers for that?