Valve recently published the latest Steam Hardware & Software Survey. According to the data, the platform saw a 20.88% monthly increase in Chinese-speaking users in February 2025. This brought the total ratio of Chinese users to 50.06% – a significant increase compared to January’s 29.18%. For comparison, the ratio of English-speaking Steam users in February 2025 was 23.79%
While an increase in Chinese users in February in itself is expected, this year’s spike was significantly higher than usual. Steam generally sees the number of users by country/language increase whenever there is a holiday. For example, last year’s Christmas season brought the monthly ratio of English-speaking users to 42.14%. In the case of China, this spike generally happens in February, coinciding with the Chinese New Year holidays. However, up until now, this increase has usually been around 10% or less. For example, February 2024 saw a 7.26% increase in Chinese-speaking users.
This makes 2025’s twenty percent increase impressive by comparison. One of the contributors to this year being special is likely Game Science’s Black Myth: Wukong, which sold 20 million copies in only two months and even drove sales of gaming monitors in China. The presence of major domestic titles on Steam is likely to have greatly promoted Chinese user’s activity on the platform, and with a growing number of promising Chinese games slated to hit the market in the near future, the trend is likely to continue.
Meanwhile, English-speaking users used to be the most represented demographic on Steam, maintaining a 40% average until around 2020. But in recent years, Chinese-speaking users have been gradually catching up, and the two demographics often switch between first and second place. However, the data this time showed a much more dramatic gap, with Chinese users at 50.06% and English-speaking users at 23.79%.
The Chinese game market has been expanding year by year, and in recent years, the PC and console market has seen particularly remarkable growth. According to the 2024 China Games Industry Report, China’s console game market in 2024 grew by 55.13% year-on-year, and this momentum is likely to continue.
