Steam's 2021 MAUs beat PlayStation, more than double Epic Game Store

Valve's PC gaming platform Steam had more monthly active users throughout 2021 than the PlayStation Network, new data indicates.

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PC gaming is on the rise and big-name publishers like Capcom, SEGA, Microsoft, and even Sony are bringing their games the market. Steam is firmly at the top of the PC platform hierarchy (nearly every publisher has released their own proprietary games launcher, but some, like Bethesda.net, are closing shop) and outside of multi-million Epic Games Store exclusivity deals, everyone wants their games on Steam for one big reason: That's where most of the players are.

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New data from Valve shows that Steam had a whopping 132 million monthly active users (MAUs) throughout 2021.

This is a huge number for two reasons: 1) it's 12 million more MAUs than 2020, and 2) Steam actually beat the PlayStation Network's numbers by 21 million users (as per Sony data, PSN had 111 million MAUs as of Q3'21, or December 31, 2021). These numbers cement PC gaming firmly in the forefront of the $175 billion global video games market.

In fact, Steam's MAUs for 2021 almost beat the entire userbase of currently-reported modern PlayStation hardware. Sony has shipped 134.4 million combined PS4 and PS5 consoles as of December 31, 2021. Compare that to Steam's 132 million MAUs and there's just a 2.4 million difference between PC users and console users.

It's also worth mentioning Steam's MAUs were more than double that of Epic Games Store's numbers. This says a lot considering EGS is required to play Fortnite.

"There are no bad years to be a PC gamer, but 2021 was an especially good one. From Days Gone to Forza Horizon 5, players on PC got to enjoy an incredible lineup from some of the best first-party console studios on the planet," Valve wrote in the SteamWorks blog post.

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