Is Dota Underlords the first game to include mobile users in Steam player count?

[AnotherGills 25]

Valve’s latest title, Dota Underlords, has launched in open beta on June 20th. Unlike the mega-popular MOBA Dota 2, Dota Underlords is a free-to-play “auto chess” game available for Windows, macOS, Linux, as well as Android and iOS devices. Not only does it allow for users to carry over their account from PC to mobile, the system also allows for cross-platform multiplayer.

Within two days, the game has reached an all-time peak of 179,019 concurrent users. While this is a huge number, Steam Database (a group that tracks Steam player counts) has concluded that these numbers are including mobile players that have linked their Steam accounts. Steam Database came to this conclusion due to players appearing online on Steam when booting the game on mobile devices, as well as finding that playtime on mobile contributed to the playtime count on Steam. If this conclusion is correct, Dota Underlords will be the first game with mobile players to have an impact on player counts on Steam’s servers.

For those interested in following the player count, the SteamDB page provides loads of information regarding all-time peaks, daily peaks, and graphs that allow users to track fluctuations in player bases.

 

SteamDB's Dota Underlords player-tracking graph displaying player count fluctuations over the course of a week

 

[Andytizer 269]

It was bizarre - I downloaded the game on my iPhone and loaded it up, entered my Steam details, went through Steam Guard - had to visit my password app and my email. Tried out the game, not played auto chess before. 

Then afterwards I got some messages from friends - apparently I was ‘spamming’ logging in and out of the game. I had no idea online/playing status was also being tracked on mobile, and perhaps multitasking on iPhone was causing me to sign in and out. Weird!