The number of concurrent Steam users exceeded 40 million for the first time, Monster Hunter Wilds became the fifth largest game by online presence in Steam's history, and downloads for Pokémon TCG Pocket reached 100 million. Here are the major events in the gaming industry over the past weekend.
- Steam broke its own concurrent user record. According to SteamDB, on Sunday, March 2, there were 40,270,997 people on the platform simultaneously. Of these, 12.7 million were actively playing games. It is possible that the new record was achieved due to the demo festival "Let There Be Games" and the release of the highly anticipated Monster Hunter Wilds.
- Monster Hunter Wilds also reached a new milestone on Steam. On March 1, the number of concurrent players in its Steam version hit 1,384,608. As a result, Monster Hunter Wilds claimed the fifth spot in the all-time highest concurrent players list on the platform, overtaking Lost Ark, which had a peak of 1,325,305. To climb to the fourth spot, Monster Hunter Wilds needs to attract over 434,000 more concurrent players.
- Jam City completed the sale of the studio Ludia, best known for the games Jurassic World Alive and Jurassic World: The Game. The developers were bought by a group of Canadian investors, including BDC Capital, Investissement Québec, Fonds de solidarité FTQ, and Export Development Canada. According to PocketGamer, Ludia's CEO Jimmy Gendron remains in charge. Ludia retained most of its 130-person team—some employees moved to Jam City, while the rest continued at Ludia.
- The creators of the mobile card game Pokémon TCG Pocket announced that their game has reached 100 million downloads worldwide. It took four months since its release on October 30, 2024. Recently, DeNA boasted that its gaming division's profits had increased by 8126.8% to 21 billion yen ($138.3 million) from April to December 2024, thanks to this title's success. However, the exact revenue from Pokémon TCG Pocket was not disclosed. According to AppMagic, the game's net IAP revenue is currently $451.6 million.