Cookie Clicker is currently ruining the lives of over 30,000 people on Steam

September 2, 2021 Since this article was originally posted, Cookie Clicker has ruined another 20,000 lives.

Cookie Clicker is great. Cookie Clicker is also an all-consuming nightmare. The browser-based classic is now available in a paid, ad-free version on Steam, and it’s already proving popular. Perhaps too popular. The game has already caught over 30,000 people in its addictive web, and heaven help me, I’m one.

The Steam version of Cookie Clicker launched just yesterday, and has already reached 31,727 concurrent players, as SteamDB shows. That puts it in Steam’s top 20, just ahead of regular favourites like Civilization VI, Path of Exile, and Euro Truck Simulator 2. The in-game ‘herald’ feature gives a passive buff to all players based on the current number of Steam users. This buff has already maxed out.

Those numbers are especially impressive considering that this Steam release, currently priced at $4.99 / £3.99 / €3.99, offers basically the same features as the original browser version. It’s ad-free, it has cloud saves, music, and will support Steam Workshop, but otherwise it’s exactly the same game you might’ve lost your hours to back in its original format.

The format existed before Cookie Clicker, but this game helped usher in the popularity of idle games. You watch numbers go up, use those numbers to buy things that make the numbers go up faster, and repeat the process forever. It’s addictive, and while it’s easy to be snarky about – yes, including the headline of this very story – it’s also great.

i’m so proud… in 8 years this dumb little game on browsers has grown into this dumb little game on steam

— Orteil (@Orteil42) September 1, 2021

Just please tell my editors that I am, in fact, playing Cookie Clicker during work hours for research. Nothing else.

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