Game giant Steam has hit the 12 million mark of concurrent users at the start of the year. The all-time high is seen to be an effect of the Winter sale that will end today.
According to Steam's in-site statistics, the number was hit just before noon (EST) on Sunday. Currently the peak has dropped to 9 million, but that is seen as normal considering it's back to school and work for many players.
This time last year, Steam hit 8.5 million as a peak and then reached eight digits in June, hitting the 10 million mark for the firs time in that period. The top two games being played on steam are "Dota 2" and "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive."
Steam is an online digital distribution platform by Valve Corporation, which gives users access to game updates, multiplayer, cloud-based game progress saving and social networking via the website. The website gives access to over 6,000 games, and has a total of 125 million active users.
Steam's all-time high in terms of online users happened despite a hack that many of its users experienced on Christmas day.
According to Steam's report, store page requests for about 34,000 users, which contained sensitive personal information, were returned and possibly seen by other users. The information leaked may have included Steam user's billing address, the last four digits of their Steam Guard phone number, their purchase history, the last two digits of their credit card number, and/or their email address.
It did not include the full credit card number, full password or any information that would have allowed other users to access the gamer's account or billing credentials.
The hack was caused by a DoS attack to Steam, after the site recorded a 2000% over the average traffic during the Steam Christmas holiday sale, causing developers to be distracted and overwhelmed by the Winter craze.
