Chinese-speaking users accounted for 50 percent of Steam’s playerbase last month.
Valve has released its latest Steam Hardware and Software Survey, which revealed a 20.88 percent increase in Simplified Chinese-speaking users in February 2025, making up half of the entire userbase.
As Automaton noted, February usually brings an increase of Chinese users to Steam as it coincides with Chinese New Year holidays. However, this year’s increase was significantly higher than usual – 2024 saw an equivalent increase of 7.26 percent.
English-speaking users are the next highest, accounting for an almost 24 percent proportion of the userbase. Similarly, the Christmas season usually results in a spike in proportion.
The success of Game Science’s Black Myth: Wukong is likely a contributing factor to this increase in Chinese users. While its player numbers have dwindled since launch, it remains a huge success story and has the second highest all-time concurrent player count on the platform.
Another factor could be the demo for Mecha Break, a multiplayer mech shooter from Chinese developer Amazing Seasun Games that dominated Steam Next Fest – it reached a peak player count of over 300,000.
Other contributing factors could be the ongoing success of NetEase’s Marvel Rivals that saw its new season launch in this period, as well as the release of Monster Hunter Wilds at the very end of the month that saw Steam reach its highest ever concurrent player count.
What’s more, this upward trend in Chinese-speaking users is likely to continue. If Mecha Break’s demo is anything to go by, its full release later this year will be huge.
Then there’s the likes of the PlayStation-published Chinese action game Lost Soul Aside, as well as another Chinese action game Wuchang: Fallen Feathers (not to be confused with Wukong), while the free-to-play FragPunk follows Marvel Rivals as NetEase’s next big shooter.
It’s clear that Chinese studios are thriving, and that’s resulting in a surge of Steam users in the country.
Yet political relations between China and the US are causing friction in the industry. NetEase laid off a number of Marvel Rivals developers from its US team despite the game’s success. Reportedly, further downsizing is yet to come, though NetEase has denied such allegations.
At the start of the year, Chinese conglomerate Tencent was labelled a military company by the US – the company threatened legal proceedings in response.