Steam vs GOG User Comparison 2026 [Player Counts, Revenue, Catalogues And Play Habits]
Steam logged 43,505,724 concurrent users on October 11, 2026, a SteamDB all-time high. GOG has no public counterpart, so any Steam vs GOG user comparison rests on what each side publishes. This brief sets those records side by side: concurrency, EU active users, 2025 play recaps, store surveys, revenue filings, catalogue counts and GOG’s sale to co-founder Michał Kiciński.
Steam vs GOG User Comparison
How Many People Use Steam Compared With GOG?
SteamDB recorded an all-time peak of 43,505,724 concurrent Steam users on October 11, 2026. Valve’s own stats page showed 43,501,449 at that peak, according to PC Games Hardware.
SteamDB counted 14,464,385 users in-game at the October peak. That set a new in-game record above March 2026’s 13,819,439.
| Concurrent users | Count | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Logged in, all-time peak | 43,505,724 | October 11, 2026 |
| In-game at that peak | 14,464,385 | October 11, 2026 |
| Previous in-game record | 13,819,439 | March 2026 |
Source: SteamDB, via PC Games Hardware, March and October 2026
Reported 2026 marks for the Steam concurrency record include 42,042,778 on January 11 and 42,686,616 on March 29.
Source: SteamDB data, via Notebookcheck, KitGuru and Windows Report, January and March 2026
Valve’s EU Digital Services Act notice adds a monthly measure. Steam averaged 31.1 million monthly active recipients from the European Union between August 1, 2025 and January 31, 2026.
Source: Valve, Digital Services Act notice on Steam’s legal page, August 2025 to January 2026
GameDiscoverCo’s Simon Carless extrapolated that EU figure, with Steam bandwidth data, to about 198 million monthly active users worldwide in the second half of 2025. That is an analyst estimate, not a Valve figure.
Valve’s last official count was 132 million monthly active users, announced in 2021.
Source: GameDiscoverCo estimate, H2 2025 (via tbreak); Valve, 2021
What GOG Discloses About Its Users
CD Projekt’s filings reported GOG revenue and profit, not user counts. Its 2025 annual report says GOG sold games online to “millions of individual users worldwide.”
Source: CD Projekt, Management Board report on 2025 activities, March 2026
Play Habits in Steam vs GOG Year-End Recaps
Steam Replay 2025 and GOG Year 2025 track what individual players did, a different lens from Steam user trends at platform scale. Valve reports medians, while GOG reports averages.
Steam Replay 2025: The Median Player
| Metric (median per user) | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Games played | 4 |
| Achievements unlocked | 11 |
| Most consecutive days played | 6 |
Source: Valve, Steam Replay 2025, December 2025 (via GamingBolt)
GOG Year 2025: The Average Player
| Metric (average per user) | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Games played | 2.4 |
| Achievements unlocked | 14 |
| Hours played | 137 |
Source: GOG, GOG Year 2025 recap, January 2026 (via PPE.pl)
PC Gamer set GOG’s 14 achievements against Steam’s 11, per PPE.pl. An average and a median are different statistics, so the gap is not a like-for-like result.
How Old Are the Games Steam Users Play?
Games released in 2025 took 14% of all Steam playtime that year, against 15% for new releases in 2024. Titles eight or more years old took 40%, up from 37%, and games one to seven years old took 44%.
Source: Valve, Steam Replay 2025 and 2024 (via TechSpot and WN Hub)
79.5% vs 17.3%: Steam vs GOG Store Use in Two 2025 Surveys
Players: Boiling Steam Poll, May 2025
Boiling Steam, a Linux gaming site, asked its Mastodon followers where they buy most of their PC games. The opt-in poll closed on May 25, 2025 with 278 answers.
Steam took 79.5%, GOG 17.3%, Itch.io 2.2% and Epic Games Store 1.1%, which rounds to 100.1%. The site’s editor had expected GOG at 5% or less and tied its share to a readership that cares about DRM-free games.
Source: Boiling Steam, Mastodon poll, May 2025
Developers: 306 Executives in Rokky’s Report
Rokky’s The State of PC Game Distribution polled 306 PC game developers at manager level or above in the US and UK through Atomik Research. Of those, 88% said Steam delivers over 75% of their revenue, and 72% called Steam a monopoly.
Respondents could pick several stores, so the shares overlap. 48% had released on the Epic Games Store, 10% on GOG and 8% on itch.io.
Source: Rokky and Atomik Research, The State of PC Game Distribution, 2025
Steam vs GOG Revenue: Analyst Estimates and Company Filings
Valve does not report Steam revenue. Alinea Analytics estimates Steam’s gross revenue at $1.7 billion in September 2026, its best September on record by Alinea’s count.
Counter-Strike 2, Apex Legends, PUBG and Dota 2 generated almost $168 million combined that month, per the same estimates.
| Period | Estimated Steam gross revenue |
|---|---|
| December 2025 | $1.6 billion |
| September 2026 | $1.7 billion |
| Q3 2026 (July to September) | $5.5 billion |
| January to September 2025 | $14.5 billion |
| January to September 2026 | $16.5 billion |
Source: Alinea Analytics estimates, December 2025 to September 2026 (via tbreak and Dexerto)
GOG’s figures come from CD Projekt filings. GOG generated PLN 199.3 million in 2024, about $51.6 million at Game World Observer’s conversion, down 15.2% from 2023.
Source: CD Projekt, FY2024 earnings presentation, March 2025 (via Game World Observer)
The GOG.COM segment reported PLN 48,682 thousand in Q1 2025 sales revenue before consolidation eliminations. The Q1 2024 figure was PLN 44,234 thousand.
Source: CD Projekt, consolidated financial statement for Q1 2025
Valve Corporation, Steam’s operator, was CD Projekt’s largest client in 2025. Sales to Valve reached PLN 382,824 thousand, or 44.2% of group sales revenue.
Source: CD Projekt, Management Board report on 2025 activities, March 2026
Who Owns GOG After the December 2025 Sale?
Michał Kiciński, co-founder of both CD Projekt and GOG, owns 100% of GOG. He signed the purchase agreement on December 29, 2025 and acquired all 2,715 shares on December 31, 2025.
The price was PLN 90,695,440. Before the sale, GOG paid CD Projekt PLN 44,200,000 tied to profits from earlier years.
A new distribution agreement sets financial terms for the first six years after the sale. CD Projekt said the agreement includes a plan to release upcoming CD Projekt Red games on GOG.
CD Projekt booked PLN 73,839 thousand in net profit from discontinued operations for 2025, against PLN 1,262 thousand in 2024. The 2025 figure includes the after-tax gain on the GOG sale and the segment’s net profit.
Source: CD Projekt, GOG sale announcement and Management Board report on 2025 activities, December 2025 to March 2026
21,252 Steam Releases in 2025 Against GOG’s Curated Catalogue
SteamDB lists 21,252 games released on Steam in 2025, up from 18,446 in 2024. The 2026 count stood at 21,143 on October 15, with 143,085 games released in total.
Annual release counts on SteamDB rose each year from 2019 through 2025, building a Steam game library that now tops 143,000 titles.
Source: SteamDB, game releases by year, checked October 15, 2026
GOG grows through curation instead. Its Preservation Program launched on October 13, 2024 with 100 classic games re-released in updated or quality-tested builds.
Source: GOG, Preservation Program launch announcement, October 2024
Operating Systems and Languages in Steam’s September 2026 Survey
Valve’s hardware and software survey is optional and anonymous, so it describes respondents, not every Steam user. Windows ran on 95.03% of surveyed systems in September 2026.
| Operating system (Valve label) | Share of surveyed systems | Monthly change (points) |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | 95.03% | +1.08 |
| Linux | 3.05% | −0.85 |
| OSX | 1.92% | −0.22 |
Source: Valve, Steam Hardware & Software Survey, September 2026
Linux fell 0.85 points in the same month that Simplified Chinese rose 7.42 points to 31.39% of respondents. English still led the language list at 34.20%, down 4.05 points.
SteamOS Holo 64 bit, the system on Valve’s Steam Deck handheld, made up 0.53% of surveyed systems. CachyOS 64 bit led the Linux entries at 0.55%.
GOG’s platform reach is the comparison point. CD Projekt’s report says GOG.COM kept its games compatible with current Windows and macOS versions and popular Linux distributions.
Source: Valve, Steam Hardware & Software Survey, September 2026; CD Projekt, Management Board report on 2025 activities
FAQs
How many users does GOG have?
CD Projekt’s filings give no GOG user count. Its 2025 annual report says GOG sold games online to millions of individual users worldwide, without a figure.
Does Steam have more users than GOG?
Steam’s published user figures have no GOG equivalent. Steam peaked at 43,505,724 concurrent users on October 11, 2026, per SteamDB, and averaged 31.1 million monthly active EU recipients from August 2025 to January 2026.
Who owns GOG now?
Michał Kiciński, co-founder of CD Projekt and GOG, owns 100% of GOG. He bought all 2,715 shares for PLN 90,695,440, and ownership passed to him on December 31, 2025.
Do GOG users play more games than Steam users?
The two recaps measure different things. GOG Year 2025 reported averages of 2.4 games, 14 achievements and 137 hours per user. Steam Replay 2025 reported medians of 4 games and 11 achievements.
Is the Steam vs GOG debate on Reddit backed by data?
Some data exists, but it is thin and opt-in. A May 2025 Boiling Steam Mastodon poll of 278 readers found 79.5% buy most PC games on Steam and 17.3% on GOG.
Sources
https://steamdb.info/app/753/charts/
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/
https://boilingsteam.com/poll-where-are-you-buying-the-majority-of-your-pc-games-right-now-in-2025/
