Steam to drop support for Windows 7 & 8
Valve confirms their popular game distribution platform will no longer accept Windows 7 and Windows 8 operating systems starting from next year.
The storefront from Valve was first released in 2003 as a game launcher and automatic update tool for Valve games. However, the company quickly realized that the software could as easily support 3rd party publishers. This is how the most popular gaming platform started.
In 2018, Valve announced it would no longer support Windows XP and Windows Vista. The support for these systems was dropped in 2019. Today Valve announced it will no longer support Microsoft Windows 7 and 8 starting from January 1st, 2024:
Steam on Windows 7 & 8 support, Source: Valve
Steam currently accumulates 20M concurrent players each day. It has just broken its record for 1.5M players in Counter-Strike:GO. The platform has seen a massive increase in players over the past 3 years, mainly because of the growing popularity of working from home.
The company is now focusing its efforts on its Steam Deck, based on SteamOS operating system. This handheld gaming console does not support Windows 7 or 8, but Valve released drivers for both 10 and 11 versions of Windows.
Source: Steam
