With the COVID-19 crisis keeping people within their homes, a large number of them have taken up the mantle of video games as a way to kill time and cut down on boredom. Steam, currently the most dominant distribution platform for video games on PC, has recorded quite the rush. The last peak recorded was 20 million concurrent users, but with the crisis gradually deepening and more people staying indoors – the number had gradually increased.
A majority of online services are limiting their speeds in order to combat the rush of users, but Steam hasn’t made any such move as of yet. If anything, this might trigger a backlash from the many gamers looking to spend some quality time online with their friends and family.
It would be interesting to figure out what percentage of these numbers are players completely new to the platform – how many new players found shelter in gaming in these troubled times.