Steam Sees 30 Million Users, Sales Up 200 Percent

Valve's online game platform, Steam, has now reached 30 million active accounts -- according to the company, that's a volume that represents 178 percent growth year over year. Steam now plays host to 1,200 games played by as many as 3 million simultaneous users at peak. Six million unique users access Steam every day, Valve adds, and sales for the service are up over 200 percent year over year, marking the sixth straight year where the platform has seen sales double or better. Valve says it's had to increase Steam's infrastructure to support this demand, with the service now eating up 400Gps of bandwidth. In addition, Steam says its Steamworks publishing suite is seeing continued adoption, having shipped in over 200 titles since launching two years ago. Users have also saved 100 million files in the Steam Cloud, according to Valve. "Steam is on track to record the biggest year in its six year history," says Valve president Gabe Newell, praising the service's recent advancements in support of growth. These advancements include new support for Mac, Steam Wallet and new support for microtransactions. "We believe the growth in accounts, sales, and player numbers is completely tied to this work and we plan to continue to develop the platform to offer more marketing, sales, and design tools for developers and publishers of games and digital entertainment," says Newell.