The niche at a glance
FMV on Steam: 1,096 released games, 321 in the last 12 months, 338 announced and still unreleased. Median lifetime reviews: 68. 29% of them never reached 10 reviews. Free to play: 6%. FMV 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 included540 releasesReleases per year
outcomes count only games released more than 90 days ago, anything newer has not had time to gather reviewsFMV × mechanics: what the pairings end up with
every mechanics tag shipped with FMV at least 5 times · same window× setting× mechanics| FMV × | 3 y | 12 m | median | ≥500 | adjusted | vs chance | last hit | who made it | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Immersive Sim | 179 | 63 | 275 | 37.4% 31%–45% | 34.3% | cliché ×4.35 | 90 d |    | |
| Multiple Endings | 198 | 69 | 289 | 35.9% 30%–43% | 33.2% | cliché ×3.54 | 90 d |  | |
| Strategy | 61 | 11 | 275 | 39.3% 28%–52% | 31.3% | ordinary ×0.47 | 90 d |   | |
| Strategy RPG | 15 | 3 | 809 | under 20 | 29.5% | ordinary ×0.82 | 127 d | | |
| RPG | 268 | 95 | 188 | 29.1% 24%–35% | 27.5% | cliché ×1.92 | 90 d | | |
| Dating Sim | 228 | 80 | 207 | 28.9% 23%–35% | 27.2% | cliché ×8.12 | 90 d | | |
| Interactive Fiction | 245 | 104 | 149 | 28.6% 23%–35% | 26.9% | cliché ×7.98 | 111 d | | |
| Visual Novel | 273 | 109 | 149 | 26.4% 22%–32% | 25.0% | cliché ×4.86 | 90 d | | |
| Choices Matter | 164 | 52 | 207 | 26.2% 20%–33% | 24.1% | cliché ×2.89 | 127 d | | |
| Simulation | 252 | 87 | 144 | 24.6% 20%–30% | 23.3% | cliché ×1.58 | 90 d | | |
| Choose Your Own Adventure | 131 | 43 | 145 | 23.7% 17%–32% | 21.4% | cliché ×4.50 | 118 d |  | |
| Adventure | 237 | 90 | 128 | 21.5% 17%–27% | 20.4% | ordinary ×1.30 | 118 d |  | |
| CRPG | 19 | 5 | 361 | under 20 | 18.8% | cliché ×2.48 | 328 d |    | |
| Quick-Time Events | 19 | 6 | 223 | under 20 | 18.8% | cliché ×3.78 | 169 d |    | |
| Life Sim | 63 | 20 | 161 | 22.2% 14%–34% | 18.5% | cliché ×2.25 | 111 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.
