42.4% of Steam fans play only on PC, survey finds
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A GameDiscoverCo survey of more than 16,000 Steam fans shows that 42.4% play only on PC and just 15.6% combine PC, console and mobile in a month.
Nearly half of Steam fans play exclusively on PC. That is what the "Steam Fan Snapshot" survey by consultancy GameDiscoverCo, released on October 16, 2026, points to: among the more than 16,000 Steam players surveyed around the world, 42.4% say they play only on the computer, without using a console or mobile. The next group, at 22%, combines PC and mobile, and only 15.6% of respondents move across all three platforms — PC, console and mobile. The survey also shows that 91.5% of those surveyed play on PC at least one hour per month, a number that serves as the basis for all the breakdowns.
How the survey was conducted
The Steam Fan Snapshot is a database from GameDiscoverCo, a market analysis consultancy founded by Simon Carless, focused on how players discover and buy games. The survey polled more than 16,000 Steam players worldwide — a number the company expects to surpass 20,000 soon — recruited through online giveaways.
The methodological difference lies in the cross-referencing: with the participants' explicit authorization, the questionnaire answers are linked to the real game catalog of that Steam account, in anonymized form. That way, it is possible to compare declared behavior with what the person actually plays. For the question about platforms, the standard adopted was playing on that device for more than one hour per month — a criterion that excludes, for example, someone who only opened the game once in the year.
The complete data is on the GDCo Pro platform, aimed at industry subscribers. The platform breakdown is one of the first public analyses made from this expanded base.
The Steam fan in numbers
The survey dismantles the idea of a monolithic "PC gamer". The chart published by GameDiscoverCo organizes respondents into seven possible usage combinations — and shows that most Steam fans also play on at least one other type of device:
| Platform combination (≥1h per month) | % of respondents |
|---|---|
| PC only | 42.4% |
| PC + mobile (no console) | 22.0% |
| PC + console (no mobile) | 11.5% |
| PC + console + mobile | 15.6% |
| Total playing on PC at least 1h per month | 91.5% |
The chart also brings smaller slices: 3.5% play only on console, 1.3% only on mobile and 1.4% combine console and mobile without touching a PC. In other words, even within an audience recruited precisely for being Steam fans, coexisting with other platforms is the rule, not the exception — but the PC core remains the largest isolated block.
Switch is the console of choice for those who leave the PC
When the breakdown moves to comparing PC and consoles, the picture becomes clearer. According to the survey, 64.4% of respondents — about seven in ten PC players — do not play on any console. Among those who do, the preference is clear:
- Nintendo Switch: 7.5% combine PC with the Nintendo console, the largest share among those who choose only one console;
- PlayStation: 6.4%;
- Xbox: 3.2%;
- PlayStation and Xbox together with the PC: 4.3% — about one in every twenty respondents;
- PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch in the same month: 3.2%, the most "hardcore" group in the breakdown.
The Switch's advantage draws attention for a simple reason: it is the console with a proposition furthest from that of a high-performance PC. GameDiscoverCo's reading is that part of Steam fans was historically drawn to the Switch's portable and hybrid format, but prefers the compatibility and larger catalog of the Steam Deck.
Steam Deck: 17% of the sample
The number that most surprised the consultancy is the penetration of the Steam Deck itself. Among respondents, 17% say they play on Valve's handheld for at least one hour per month — almost one in five. That is a proportion far above GameDiscoverCo's own estimates for total playtime on Steam, which place the device at 2% to 4% of the total.
The explanation is the same one that runs through the whole survey: the sample is made up of engaged fans, who follow communities and answer giveaways. Comparing the handhelds, the Switch still appears ahead: 16.4% of respondents play on the Nintendo console alongside the PC, against 13.4% who combine PC and Steam Deck. But 5.5% use all three platforms — PC, Deck and Switch —, a crossover large enough to support the thesis that Valve's handheld inherited part of the audience that previously saw the Switch as its mobile option.
Why this matters for game makers
For studios and publishers, the message is practical. The first consequence is that treating the PC audience as a single block leads to wrong portfolio decisions: if 22% of Steam fans also play on mobile and 15.6% move across all three platforms, campaigns and launches designed for a single device may be leaving money on the table — or, in the opposite direction, spending on ports the base is not asking for.
The second is the reading of the console as a competitor. With 64.4% of PC players outside the console market, the Steam audience is mostly not a potential buyer of a PlayStation or Xbox version. The portion that does play on console, however, has a measurable preference: Switch first, PlayStation second, Xbox third.
The third concerns the Steam Deck. A base that already plays on a handheld in a relevant proportion changes interface requirements, on-screen text size and minimum performance — and explains why Valve insists on verifying game compatibility with the device.
The limitations of the sample
Those responsible for the survey themselves take care to delimit the reach of the numbers. The sample does not represent all PC players or all Steam users: it is made up of more engaged fans, recruited in online communities and through giveaways, and GameDiscoverCo describes the group as a more "plugged-in" subset familiar with the internet — though more international than many similar surveys in the sector.
"We are not saying this is perfectly indicative of all PC or Steam players. We are surveying a more engaged and connected subset (and a more international one than many similar surveys)."
Even so, the survey offers a rare map of an audience that is usually measured only by sales and concurrent player numbers. For those who follow the PC market, the conclusion is less about "how many players exist" and more about who they are: people who play on more than one screen, with the PC as their center of gravity.
The data in this article comes from GameDiscoverCo's newsletter "What other devices do PC game fans play on?", published on October 16, 2026, and from Inven Global's story on the survey. To follow the ebb and flow of the platform's audience, it is worth seeing the record for concurrent Deadlock players on Steam and the overview of the console crisis in the United States. More market data is in our games coverage.
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