With over 1.05 million players, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was the most popular game at the top of the new concurrent players. The following games were PUBG: Battlegrounds with over 440 thousand players and Dota 2 with over 750 thousand players. Lost Ark and Apex Legends complete the top five. 

Naturally, not every one of the 30 million online users was playing games; others were probably just browsing the store or interacting with communities. The recent resurgence of Cyberpunk 2077, as well as the full releases of indie sensation Vampire Survivors and blockbuster Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, although they don't rank among the top 10 most played games, may have helped to reach this new peak. The Steam Deck is also continuing to gain popularity. 

Steam has surpassed a new concurrent player record just a few days after breaking its own previous record. Despite competition from others, the digital game distribution platform is still growing. Until recently, Steam was essentially the sole digital distribution channel for video games, but right now Epic Games Store is perhaps its main rival. Although the platform frequently offers free games to its users, it doesn't appear that it will ever unseat Steam. 

SteamDB, which keeps track of user counts in games and throughout the platform generally, reports that Valve's new Steam concurrent user record is 30,049,264 concurrent players. Just a few days ago, the company achieved 30 million users for the first time. It appears that this wasn't an accident, as the figure has since increased even more. This surge is probably the result of a number of causes, and Valve may end up setting yet another record during its renowned holiday shopping season. 

Additionally, more games that users previously had to purchase a console to try are making their way to PC. Particularly PlayStation exclusives have started to make their way to PCs, often many months to a year after release, and occasionally even at the same time. Popular games like Marvel's Spider-Man and Horizon Zero Dawn are offered on Steam, and as a result, gamers may be playing certain classic PS4 and PS5 games on PC, increasing Steam's user base. 

Even though many of Valve's game franchises have stopped production throughout the years, its gaming platform is obviously still active. Having said that, Gabe Newell and other others have acknowledged that Valve is currently developing a number of games. It's unclear what they are or when they will be made public, but whenever a new Valve game debuts, the Steam platform will definitely experience a sharp increase in users once more.