Thank Christ for that.

It's funny that you criticize PC Gaming so much, yet you haven't shown any proof to support your argument. How about linking some sources with hard facts?

What I find it funny is that you completely ignore the dozens of millions of PC gamer that play MMO, just because you don't like MMOs... A PC Gamer KNOWS that MMOs are very much a part of PC Gaming.

MMOs are some of the most hardcore games. Are you going to ignore Counter-Strike next?

And it's also funny that you ignore browser and social games. Why ignore them? Most console games are as much casual as PC browser and social games.

Question.. how many steam users are there? active ones.. (I have one but I have bought 1 game which I even didn't bother to download >_> )

In January 2010 they announced they had 25 millions members (accounts with bought games).

There are 25 million account holders. Daily peaks are usually around 2.5 million. I can't recall the last time there were less than a million users on it.

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

It's right there.. on the 7th of september at 16:31... >_>

Anyway.. to be honest I expected a bit more users.. like 40 million plus or so.. Steam is de largest DD service for the PC.

Looks like a service outage given the big spike.

No idea why you expected more account holders, 25 million is pretty damned good as it is. Steam may be the biggest platform, but it's still just one of many.

Come on shio, how many times do you want me to post the interview with epic "the money is on console"? I did this 4-5 times on VGC already.

Or the financial reports of THQ, EA, Activision (not Blizzard --> PC only), Ubisoft, Square Enix, Capcom etc etc etc.

And you weren't able to provide us with ANY link that cod4 sold 10million on PC.

And no, I don't ignore MMOs. I never did. If you like MMOs, you should get a gaming PC and play them on your PC. The PC got the best variety of MMOs and works just fine with it.

All I said is that there is not much left on the PC that sells decent amounts except MMOs and social games / facebook games (Actually those don't sell at all :D). Sure you get your Blizzard RTS every couple of years (and those are brilliant) but besides that, there is not much left.

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@ steam accounts

There are more than 25 million accounts, but I couldn't find any information that those accounts bought anything on steam. And the daily peaks with 2.5 million users are not 2.5 million users actually playing. They are signed in. It is pretty common that when you boot your PC your signing in automatically. Check the stats and do the math:

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

add the peaks of the top 100 games in the past 24 hours and you are getting somewhere near the 300 - 400k mark. So assume all games would have their peak at the very same time, you have 300-400k people actually playing at the same time.

I never checked when a big game just saw a release date though. The only big PC game left on steam for this year is Black Ops, so I will check the numbers again.

So there are not 25 million unique users on Steam.Heck i even got 3 accounts, because I always forgot my password. Actually I need a 4th one :D

And Steam accounts for 70% of the global digital distribution PC market according to this:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=26158

but did you somehow miss Civ 5? it is probably the biggest PC release left.

So your only evidence is an interview which provides no hard facts, and financial figures from Console-centric publishers which not only do they often not include digital sales in the PC section, but they also don't post the profits of each platform, which would significantly enhance the PC platform in those financial reports due to the fact that the profit margin of PC games are in a whole different level compared to console games.

As for the Steam active accounts, I don't remember where I read that they're accounts with bought games, but it's already the common opinion. Either way, if those 25 millions were accounts logged into the last 30 days, it would further help my point, because then it probably means that even more people are on Steam than just 25 millions.

As for how many people are playing on Steam, the truth is, not only it does not count the people offline on Steam (which I currently have been recently), but it also doesn't count the people that playing non-Steam games while being online on Steam (very common, especially considering that Steam allows you to add non-Steam games to Steam).

It's funny that you seemed to forget Civilization V, among other Steamworks titles that are coming soon. This year Steam has had far more Steamworks titles than ever before. This past few weeks Mafia 2, Worms Reloaded and, just yesterday, R.U.S.E. came out. And this year we're still going to have these Steamworks titles:

1. Civilization V
2. Fallout: New Vegas 
3. Darksiders 
4. Red Faction: Armageddon 
5. Brink 
6. Torchlight 2
7. Natural Selection 2
8. Nuclear Dawn

It's funny that you somehow think Steam isn't doing exceptional, but in truth, Steam has had a 100% growth every year. In 2009, Steam increased 205!!! http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1271