Metrics and definitions
Every number on PlayRecon comes from Steam’s own public surfaces or is computed from them. This page says which is which: a rank Steam publishes and a score we assemble are different kinds of claim, and quoting one as the other is how numbers get misread. Steam does not publish sales, so nothing here is a sales figure.
- PU #Popular Upcoming rankfrom Steam
- Position in Steam’s Popular Upcoming chart. Ranks are dynamic, so for released games it is the peak position reached; the ·Nd suffix is how many days the game held a chart spot. Steam keeps no archive of the chart, so we have a rank only for games whose run overlaps our recording: releases from before it have none, and their period pages omit the row instead of showing a zero.
- WL #Wishlist rankfrom Steam
- Global wishlist rank on Steam. For released games it is the best position reached before release. Recorded live for the same reason as the Popular Upcoming rank: Steam publishes the standing, not its history.
- FollowersSteam community followersfrom Steam
- Followers of the game’s Steam community hub: the broadest publicly visible demand signal, and the only one Steam shows for every page.
- ScoreDemand scorePlayRecon
- A composite used for mosaic tile area, not a Steam metric: followers on a power-law scale with a boost for days spent in the Popular Upcoming chart. Games released before rank tracking began use reviews as a proxy for followers.
- ReviewsTotal Steam reviewsfrom Steam
- Total review count on the store page. The standard scale proxy for released games: Steam does not publish sales, and reviews track them at a roughly stable ratio within a niche.
- DemoPlayable demofrom Steam
- The game has a demo on Steam; the number beside the icon is the demo’s peak concurrent players.
- DudNever reached 10 reviewsPlayRecon
- A released game whose lifetime review count stayed under 10. Used as the failure share of a niche: it counts the releases that got no visible traction at all, and it is included in every distribution on purpose, because a niche looks better than it is if failures are dropped.
- UnseenNo demand signalPlayRecon
- A release with no followers, no wishlist rank and no time on the Popular Upcoming chart. Not the same as a failure: it means Steam’s public surfaces never showed the game, so nothing can be said about its demand either way.
- Data as ofSnapshot datePlayRecon
- The date of the data snapshot every number on the page is built from. Not every number is read at the same pace: followers and reviews, for example, are read every few days.