The niche at a glance
Dark on Steam: 10,995 released games, 2,795 in the last 12 months, 7,209 announced and still unreleased. Of the 5,718 released between three years and 90 days ago, the median has 13 lifetime reviews. 43% of them never reached 10 reviews. Free to play: 11%. Dark is a Steam store tag, applied by the developer and refined by players; a game carries several tags at once, so niche counts overlap and do not add up to the size of the Steam catalogue. Data as of .
What releases end up with
lifetime reviews · released 3 years ago to 90 days ago · failures included5,718 releasesReleases per year
outcomes count only games released more than 90 days ago, anything newer has not had time to gather reviewsDark × mechanics: what the pairings end up with
every mechanics tag shipped with Dark at least 5 times · same window× setting× mechanics| Dark × | 3 y | 12 m | median | ≥500 | adjusted | vs chance | last hit | who made it | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extraction Shooter | 12 | 8 | 1,552 | under 20 | 26.0% | cliché ×1.59 | 91 d |    | |
| Character Customization | 145 | 59 | 13 | 20.0% 14%–27% | 18.4% | ordinary ×0.47 | 90 d |    | |
| Souls-like | 179 | 52 | 24 | 19.6% 14%–26% | 18.3% | cliché ×1.94 | 91 d |  | |
| JRPG | 105 | 38 | 14 | 20.0% 13%–29% | 17.9% | ordinary ×0.64 | 111 d |    | |
| Bullet Heaven | 29 | 20 | 35 | 24.1% 12%–42% | 17.0% | ordinary ×0.78 | 142 d |    | |
| Martial Arts | 29 | 11 | 24 | 24.1% 12%–42% | 17.0% | ordinary ×0.64 | 90 d |    | |
| Action RPG | 320 | 95 | 16 | 17.5% 14%–22% | 16.9% | ordinary ×1.06 | 91 d | | |
| Colony Sim | 20 | 10 | 83 | 25.0% 11%–47% | 15.8% | ordinary ×0.46 | 99 d |    | |
| Metroidvania | 77 | 20 | 29 | 18.2% 11%–28% | 15.8% | ordinary ×1.28 | 166 d |    | |
| Cooking | 29 | 10 | 70 | 20.7% 10%–38% | 15.0% | ordinary ×0.40 | 104 d |    | |
| Third-Person Shooter | 148 | 56 | 19 | 15.5% 11%–22% | 14.5% | ordinary ×1.08 | 91 d |   | |
| Party-Based RPG | 76 | 24 | 11 | 15.8% 9%–26% | 13.9% | ordinary ×0.69 | 92 d |   | |
| Spectacle fighter | 40 | 8 | 14 | 17.5% 9%–32% | 13.9% | ordinary ×0.88 | 155 d |    | |
| Looter Shooter | 34 | 13 | 7 | 17.6% 8%–34% | 13.6% | ordinary ×0.95 | 216 d |   | |
| Word Game | 43 | 18 | 9 | 16.3% 8%–30% | 13.2% | ordinary ×0.54 | 320 d |   |
About these numbers
“Adjusted” is the share pulled towards the catalogue with the weight of twenty releases: the top of any ranked list is optimistic (out of a hundred pairings one will show 35 % on 23 releases by luck alone), and the adjustment is what stops a small lucky group from leading. The band next to the raw share is the 95 % interval. This list is the same for everyone today; the second opinion is the description-based one on Pitch comps.
