Steam is the world’s biggest online retail distributor of PC gaming. Valve Corporation created this digital game distribution platform. In 2003, Steam was first announced at the Game Developers Conference.
Steam was initially designed to update its online games, like the Counter-Strike.
In the latter part of 2005, Steam started to host third-party games until it opened itself to download and purchase.
Fantastic games, such as Darwinia and Rag Doll Kung Fu, were soon made available on the gaming distribution platform. In the middle part of 2021, Steam had more than 46,000 games. In 2020 alone, 9,842 gaming titles were published on the Steam.
Currently, Steam is a leading popular digital gaming platform with services such as social networking, digital rights, video streaming, multiple gaming, and others.
Steam had an estimated 120 million monthly active users around the globe in 2020 alone, according to Statista. Two years earlier, the number was a big leap from the 90 million monthly active users.
In 2020, Valve Corporation said that Steam attracted approximately 2.6 million new game buyers per month. Game purchases also climbed by 21.4 percent compared to the previous year. While the company did not already publish its revenue to the public, Steam remains a game-changing platform in online gaming purchases.
“Despite the market dominance of mobile gaming and the strong performance of console titles, Steam is still one of the strongest contenders in the PC gaming segment,” Statista said.
Citing a 2021 research, Statista said that more than a quarter of game developers across the globe generated 50 to 99 percent of their yearly revenues through the Steam digital platform.
Steam has been considered a source of top gaming titles for old and new gamers.
Steam remains at the top in finding the best gaming titles from action to zombie survival, animals to indie title, and strategy games.
In 2020, Counter Strike: Global Offensive became the top game on Steam. First published in 2021, the multiplayer first-person shooter became the favorite of more than 1.3 million people playing simultaneously worldwide. During the said year, other famous gaming titles were PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and RPG Cyberpunk 2077.
How to use Steam Guard to secure your account
Security is the name of the game in the digital world. You have to ensure that your account is safe to prevent people with malicious motives from accessing your account.
You must create a strong password and supplement it with an additional layer of access protection.
In enabling your Steam Guard, you need to give a unique code to access and verify your account, mainly when you are on an unrecognized device.
On the Steam Guard settings that you are using, you are expected to receive a special code via email or the Steam Mobile application on your smartphone. You can enable the Steam Guard by checking Steam > Settings > Account > Manage Steam Guard Account Security.
How to use Steam Collections to control your game library
You can use Steam Collections to manage your library. As a default, Steam will show your games in an alphabetical arrangement in a single and vertical list. If you already got around 100 games, you need to organize your games so it will not trouble your mind during your playing mode.
To do this, right-click a game’s name and navigate Add To > New Collection, create categories, like Action Games.
How to use Hide Steam Games
There are times that you feel like hiding a video game that you don’t often play or a game that you don’t want others to know that you are playing it. Just right-click on a title and click Manage > Hide This Game to hide the game. To find the hidden game in your library, you type it into the Search box. To unhide a game, you can search for the game and then click Manage > Remove From Hidden.
Some amazing facts about Steam
1. Valve’s Gabe Newell previously worked for Microsoft
Valve’s co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell was previously connected with Microsoft for 13 years. While working for the giant tech-company Microsoft, Newell helped develop Windows 1.01, Windows 1.02, and Windows 1.03. He left Microsoft in 1996. Together with another Microsoft employee Mike Harrington, the two founded Valve. Interestingly, Newell dropped out of Harvard University.
2. Linux is the most famous distributor among Steam users
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS becomes the top Linux distribution among Steam users. It is followed by Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS and Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa.
3. Steam has an extensive library of gaming titles
Steam can be accessed either in Mac, Windows, or Linux. Users can find and play thousands of games on the gaming platform.
4. Steam’s number of users close to Japan’s population
Steam now has over 125 million users across the globe. The number is close to the population of Japan.
Based on concurrent users, Steam has over 10 million. That’s huge!
5. Windows 10 is the most famous OS among Steam players
Windows 10 has become the major OS among Steam users, with over 350 million devices. Currently, 43 percent of Steam users have Windows 10 on their PCs. Windows 10 is followed by Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.
6. Dota becomes the first game to have 1 million concurrent users
Dota 2 became the first game to reach 1 million concurrent users. The figures mean that 1 million people across the globe were all playing the game simultaneously.
7. Over 350 million games were bought from Steam in 2015
In 2015 alone, users purchased a record-breaking of over 350 games from Steam. This figure means that Valve managed about 15 percent of the world’s PC games market.
8. Steam is available in 237 countries
The digital games platform is available around the world in 21 different languages.
9. Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive belong to the Top 10 games with the biggest users
The multiplayer online battle Dota 2 and first-person shooter video game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive became part of the highest number of users on Steam.
Other video games on Top 10 were Team Fortress 2, Grand Theft Auto V, Football Manager 2016, Unturned, Garry’s Mod, Sid Meier’s Civilization V, ARK: Survival Evolved, and Rust.