Steam Player Count Race Screensaver
The Steam Player Count Race screensaver turns Steam's most-played games into an animated bar race: widths ease toward real concurrent-player counts and rows glide up or down on overtakes. It reads the same pipeline feed as the Steam Top Games board, refreshed about every 30 minutes. It's free, needs an internet connection, and ESC exits.
How the Steam Player Count Race screensaver works
The background pipeline gathers concurrent-player counts from Valve's public Steam charts into content/steamtop.json.
Each game keeps a lane; when a refresh changes the order, lanes ease smoothly to their new positions instead of snapping.
▲/▼ arrows mark real rank changes since the previous refresh — nothing is simulated between updates.
New entries slide in from the bottom of the screen, and games that fall off the list glide out.
A worked example
When PUBG's player count climbs past Dota 2 between refreshes, the two bars trade places in one smooth overtake, a green ▲1 appears, and the counts ease to their new values. It's the same data as the Steam Top Games board, staged as a race. In Multi-view you can run both side by side.
Settings & tips
- Games shown sets how many lanes race (5–15).
- Positions genuinely change only when the pipeline feed refreshes, about every 30 minutes — the animation is the transition, not fake data.
- Run
automation/run.py steamtopon your pipeline machine to refresh the data.
Frequently asked questions
- Are the player counts real?
- Yes — real concurrent-player counts from Valve's public Steam charts, gathered by the site's pipeline. The saver never invents movement between refreshes.
- Do I need an API key?
- No. The pipeline reads Valve's key-less public data; the saver just reads a local JSON feed.
- Does it work offline?
- It needs a connection to read the feed; once loaded it keeps animating the last real standings.
- Is it free?
- Yes — free, no download, in your browser.
- How is this different from Steam Top Games?
- Same real feed, different display: Top Games is a calm ranked board, while the Race animates overtakes, entrances and exits so rank changes are the star.