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Over one billion accounts have now been registered on Valve’s PC client and storefront, Steam.
According to Steam ID Finder (thanks, PCGN), the system recently logged the 1 billionth account (reported to be the username “amusedsilentdragonfly”) to have signed up to the PC gaming client. While, naturally, many of those accounts may be dormant or bots and do not necessarily reflect Steam’s active user base, one billion accounts – which is equivalent to a seventh of the world’s entire population – is nonetheless a significant milestone.
Valve revealed last October that Steam boasted roughly 90 million monthly active users. While that’s significantly less activity than one billion registered accounts suggests, it does indicate that new PC stores like Epic Games Store have some way to go before they truly rival Valve’s 16-year dominance in PC gaming, particularly as the new milestone is up 23 million on the 67 million users Valve announced back in August 2017. The daily active user count has also increased, rising 42 per cent from 33 million to 47 million.
The boost is chiefly thought to have been driven by Steam’s expansion into China, where 30 million users have joined the digital platform since its launch earlier this year. Chinese indie devs have been able to generate sales they might not otherwise have managed to achieve, with localised games – some only available in Simplified Chinese – reaching hundreds of thousands of players. Up until that point, the majority of China’s Steam users had been accessing the US version of the software via PVNs.
Earlier today, the company has now unveiled details of its own virtual reality system, Valve Index. Pre orders go live later today for “the initial, limited-quantity launch” within the U.S. and the E.U, and are expecting to begin shipping by July 1st, 2019.
The Valve Index offers dual 1440 x 1600 LCDs, full RGB per pixel, ultra-low persistence global backlight illumination (0.330ms at 144Hz), a framerate of 80/90/120/144Hz, and double element, canted lens design optics. Valve says you can also “adjust Valve Index for your head size, face angle, and ear position then fine-tune your visual experience with IPD and eye relief adjustments”.
