Despite facing severe competitions, Steam has been the biggest PC platform for gaming if you look at the number of users who actively play games every month. A latest data of Valve says that Steam had around 120 million active players every month in 2020 and that is an untouchable number even for PlayStation and Xbox.
If we compare year-by-year, Steam users spent 50% more time on the platform in 2020 in comparison to 2019. Around 2.6 million new purchasers joined the platform each month in 2020. Also, there was around 21% increase in the number of sales in 2020 in comparison to 2019. The latest data provided offered by Sony and Microsoft says that PS4 had around 102 million active PSN users and the number of Xbox Live active users every month reaches 90 million. Even if the number of users increased for both the console services by several million, they are still way behind the monthly players that Steam had in 2020.
The statement of Valve makes it clear that a part of its growth was linked to the Covid-19 lockdown around the world that forced people to stay at home and spend more time playing games in Steam. Also, the digital gaming markets worldwide was able to see an increase in sales in 2020 and physical markets stood at the edge of bankruptcy.
Along with providing statistics, Valve also unveiled a few plans for 2021 by keeping in view the growth of the market and enhancing the user experience by refreshing Steam’s mobile app and updating the PC interface. Also, with Steam fully launched at China in 2021, Valve wishes to have a record-breaking year in terms of sales and revenue. Valve has also made a complete plan for 2021.
Along with its partner Perfect World, the team has been working hard and they are close to launching the program to bring Stream onshore to China in early 2021. They are looking to fill up the rough edges which is encountered by many users while interacting with their platform. They want to make it easy to buy, install and play games. They have planned to refresh the mobile app and make it easy for users to log in and keep the accounts secure.
Valve is looking for more ways to reward users which includes folks who are not interested in Steam Community features. Valve will continue to invest in technology which enhances game compatibility and performance with the help of Steam Play. They are also putting together different ways for prospective users to get into Linux gaming and experience the improvements. They are exploring various ways for players to browse the catalog in 2021. There will also be a Lunar New Year Sale on Steam in February 2021.