Players Spent Almost 38 Billion Hours on Steam in 2021
It has been another great year for Steam.
Steam, the video game digital distribution service by Valve, has come a long way since it was launched as a standalone software client in September 2003.
It was essentially a way for Valve to provide automatic updates for their games, but since then, the service has expanded to include games from third-party publishers.
Two decades later, any gamer worth their salt would have not only installed Steam on their PCs but also purchased video games on its digital storefront.
Chances are, millions of PC gamers across the world spend a lot of time (and money) on Steam. Today, Valve released some pretty interesting stats to prove just that.
In an annual blog post titled Steam - 2021 Year in Review, Valve said players spent almost 38 billion hours on Steam in 2021 - a 21% increase over 2020.
"Player spending on games rose 27% compared to 2020, growing even more than playtime did. That growth wasn't just due to existing players, either - Steam saw 2.6M first-time purchasers each month of 2021, roughly the same rate of new purchaser growth we saw in 2020 as the global pandemic unfolded," the report read.
Other interesting statistics include:
The report also revealed that besides spending on games, players also sent more than 2.6 million digital gift cards to friend and family in 2021, and the dollar value of those gift cards increased 43% compared to 2020.
Virtual reality gaming is also on the uptick as new VR users grew another 11% in 2021, with unique play sessions up 22%. And the newest major hardware release, the Oculus Quest 2, makes up more than a third of VR headsets on Steam.
