Steam still at 50 million users, 500,000 use Big Picture

This is a pretty misleading use of the word "user," if they're talking about accounts. (I have two or three Steam accounts myself. Does that make me two or three users?) I'd be far more interested to know how many accounts they have that have both purchased something and logged in in the last year. That would give me a far better idea of things like the sales potential of a game I might release on Steam.

Posted:6 months ago

Given that you actually have to make a concious decision to shut steam down after you play any game from your library (otherwise it happily pigs out on your bandwidth in the background). I'm not sure logged in stats would be accurate either. The only real usage gauge is to check games player on individual accounts or purchases made.

I suspect the stats are quite high though as I tend to purchase stuff on steam as it's cheaper than bricks and mortar (which it bloody well should be) and I can download it in the background ready for release day.

Posted:6 months ago

I wonder how many of them are actual users as opposed to people having just signed up? I'm a regular user of Steam. However, I bought Battlefield and signed up to Origin purely to play. As I had no end of pain with Battlefield timing me out, I stopped using it. So, yes, I'm a user, but certainly not active.

Posted:6 months ago

@ Neil Also Origin includes millions of people who have never and probably will never download the client, as anyone who has played an EA console game in the last two years has an Origin account required by the game.

Posted:5 months ago