Valve’s digital distribution service Steam is currently growing 300 per cent faster year-on-year according to newly released figures. And the service hit 6.6 million concurrent users last Sunday – compared to January 2012′s peak figure of 5 million. The 6 million mark was only hit in November last year, which is how PC Gamer calculated the eye-opening growth factor.It’s not necessarily natural growth, however, as the vast number of recently released free Dota 2 beta keys caused a spike – the game itself peaking at 237,414 concurrent users. The next highest concurrent figure belonged to Football Manager, which achieved 78.488 users.While the jump may be aided by a big release, it’s likely that we’ll see a few more spikes throughout the year as the first thirdparty Steam Boxes – like Xi3′s Piston – and Valve’s own hardware debut. Steam’s Big Picture mode, which was released to the public in December, will no doubt fuel new audiences, too – though it may take longer for that message to get out.

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