If there's one thing that's going stronger than ever during COVID-19, it's gaming. In fact, SteamDB revealed that Valve's network crossed the threshold of 20 million concurrent online users (CCU) (with 6.2 million of them playing a game at the time) yesterday for the first time ever, likely aided by the many worldwide lockdowns in place due to the coronavirus.
#Steam has just reached a new concurrent online user record of 20 million, with 6.2 million currently in-game, likely due to many people staying at home due to the #coronavirus.https://t.co/bzLMfMOJvD#COVID19
— SteamDB (@SteamDB) March 15, 2020
The good news for Valve doesn't end with the new Steam record, though, as their Counter-Strike: Global Offensive game has just broken the one million concurrent online users threshold yesterday. Given the fact that some countries still have to go into lockdown, it's reasonable to imagine that there will be many more new records broken with the 'aid' of COVID-19.
Meanwhile, though, the largest game developers are taking steps to work from home instead of heading to their offices. Rockstar and Electronic Arts have both announced such measures in the past couple of days. Here's the letter shared by Rockstar via Twitter, for instance.
In the interest of reducing the possible impact of COVID-19, Rockstar Games has
implemented work from home policies across our international offices and studios.
After significant research and consultation with our teams around the world, we began
rolling out remote work solutions worldwide across the past week, and we are confident
we have a robust system in place for our teams to continue their work with a minimum
of disruption.Our online games will continue to operate as usual, and all support teams will remain available for our players. The health and safety of our employees and their families
remains our top priority, and we will continue to adapt our practices to the situation as it
evolves. We appreciate your patience and understanding, and wish you and your families the best of health during this unusual time.Thank you,
The Rockstar Games Team
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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