Pop a bottle for the PC Master Race – people are finally starting to buy into the best way to play games.

According to various sites, including Tech4Gamers, Steam has surpassed 41.6 million concurrent players, its highest-ever peak, which also means it has now doubled its user count since 2020.

To me, there’s no secret as to why PC gaming has taken off. This generation of consoles becoming more cost-inefficient over time has no doubt contributed to the rise in PC gaming, as well as PC’s ability to play games from previous generations (one way or another) contributes to its growing popularity.

Consoles are no longer the most cost-efficient method for playing games, especially after President Dipshit’s tariffs have increased prices for consoles that would otherwise depreciate in value over time. Why spend $500 on a frustrating group of consoles that are halfway through their lifecycles when you can spend slightly more for a device that plays games and offers more multifunctional capabilities like word processing, Internet surfing, tax filing, and more?

Granted, much of the same PC parts are subject to the same tariffs as video game consoles, but the difference in my eyes is that while I’m paying more for a PC, I can use those parts for more than just video games. I can render videos faster, capture footage clearer, record audio better, and more, all from my PC.

Plus, over time, you can crack open your PC and upgrade its parts (eventually he’ll croak and the tariffs will go away, right?) which is something you can’t easily do with consoles, and even then, you generally can’t improve their graphical output, just their storage capabilities. But with modern PC graphics cards, you can make your games reach levels of graphical superiority that your PlayStation 5 could only dream of:

For me, the biggest win for PCs is that I can play anything I want without needing different consoles. After all, on what other platform can you play old MS-DOS games, arcade games, Sega Dreamcast games, PlayStation 2 games, Street Fighter X Tekken, and Digimon Story: Time Stranger without doing more than clicking a different icon?

Granted, much of PC’s ability to play older titles treads the line of piracy versus preservation, but if no companies want me to play NFL 2K5 on modern consoles, why shouldn’t I be able to acquire it and play it on my PC?

So please, tip your cap to Steam, the video game industry’s answer to Arizona Iced Tea, a beloved company that treats its base the way companies did before shareholder value and executive bonuses were their only concerns. I don’t want to see a world without Steam, so let’s enjoy it and appreciate it while we have it.