On Sunday, February 2, Steam broke it's all-time concurrent users record when 18.8 million players were active. The record was first reported by Steam Database–a website not-affiliated with Valve–over their Twitter account. Steam Database actively tracks Steam's active users in every game, and on the platform as a whole. They reported the previous record which was from January 2018 when the battle-royale craze convinced millions to flocked to Steam and play PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. This new record-breaking weekend is a great indicator of Steam's continued health following increasing competition since the Epic Games Store launched.Valve's Steam marketplace has long dominated the PC gaming scene without any competition. However, when the Epic Games Store launched in December 2018, many developers were enticed by the 88% cut offered by Epic. After all, Steam only offers a 70% cut to developers, which increases to 75% and then 80% if the game is able to make more than $10 million and $50 million dollars respectively. Epic has also attempted to win gamers over to their platform by giving users free games monthly. Additionally Epic has been securing exclusivity deals, with big games including Metro Exodus, Borderlands 3, Rocket League and The Walking Dead: The Final Season; some of which have been extremely controversial. Ultimately though, it's the gamers who choose which platform they want to support and their resounding answer has been Steam.

Regardless of Epic's free games and exclusivity periods on big releases, PC gamers clearly love Steam. The Steam eco-system currently includes features like online profiles, user reviews, wishlists, and shopping carts that Epic lacks. In fact, I'd go as far as saying Steam is the most well-put-together gaming ecosystem period; companies like Sony, Microsoft, Google, and Nintendo could greatly improve their platforms by studying the Steam formula. Recently in October, Valve even overhauled the library system leading to a large influx of user reviews. In a world where consoles are getting increasingly expensive and physical copies of games continue to decline in popularity, Steam continues to prove that it's the best place to play.