For context, Larian Studio founder Swen Vincke predicted that the game could reach 100,000 peak concurrent users during its debut period, and that was a fairly optimistic prediction. I work in IT, and really feel for those folks. I hope they designed their infrastructure to scale!
And that’s only Steam, not including GOG, or the influx of PS5 users next month. Let’s take it to 1 million!
I think many like the DRM free games. I have gotten a few very old games (Ultima series, Neverwinter) from them. I like to use Steam over GOG because of the Big Picture Mode and Proton. I even added GOG Neverwinter to my non-Steam games to be able to access it with Big Picture Mode.