Steam hit 42,042,778 concurrent users on Sunday, a record per SteamDB, as PC gamers grapple with a hardware crisis. The platform’s growth pattern shows 39 million in December 2024, 40 million in March 2026, and 41 million in October 2025 before Sunday’s surge.
“RAM is absurdly expensive because a cabal of billionaires has bought up, like, all of it...” one source noted.
SSDs face similar issues: “NAND production for AI server drives subtracts from production for mere mortals.” Meanwhile, “GPUs are ridiculously pricey when their makers deign to remember videogames exist at all.”