The niche at a glance

Hockey on Steam: 140 released games, 47 in the last 12 months, 46 announced and still unreleased. Median lifetime reviews: 9. 51% of them never reached 10 reviews. Free to play: 11%. Hockey 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 included59 releases
p100
p251
median9
p7536
p90141
51% of them never reached 10 reviewsMedian price $7.99 · 11% free-to-play

Releases per year

outcomes count only games released more than 90 days ago, anything newer has not had time to gather reviews
2019
3med 326 · 0% unseen
2020
11med 34 · 27% unseen
2021
9med 8 · 56% unseen
2022
12med 7 · 58% unseen
2023
9med 12 · 22% unseen
2024
19med 6 · 63% unseen
2025
23med 12 · 43% unseen
2026
29med 10 · 50% unseen · 17 too fresh

Hockey × presentation: what the pairings end up with

every presentation tag shipped with Hockey at least 5 times · same window
share reaching 500 reviews, shrunk towards the catalogue · click a row to open the concept
Hockey ×3 y12 mmedian≥500adjusted vs chancelast hitwho made it
First-Person6216under 209.0%
ordinary ×0.57647 d
Puck
Puck
Funny6162under 209.0%
ordinary ×0.92647 d
Puck
Puck
Third Person739under 208.6%
cliché ×1.69915 d
Slapshot: Rebound
Slapshot: Rebound
Family Friendly9318under 208.0%
cliché ×1.68647 d
Puck
Puck
Top-Down16412under 206.5%
cliché ×2.14915 d
Slapshot: Rebound
Slapshot: Rebound
Relaxing521under 205.3%
avoided ×0.34never
Anime632under 205.1%
ordinary ×0.60never
Minimalist631under 205.1%
cliché ×1.54never
Old School6218under 205.1%
cliché ×1.95never
Realistic623under 205.1%
ordinary ×1.20never
3D2710123.7% 1%–18%5.0%
ordinary ×1.38647 d
Puck
Puck
Pixel Graphics8212under 204.8%
ordinary ×0.67never
Stylized816under 204.8%
ordinary ×1.39never
Retro1049under 204.4%
cliché ×1.60never
Cute1176under 204.3%
ordinary ×1.00never
2 pairings cleared 20 releases; 53 more never reached 5 and are not listed. Compared against 6.7% for games that carry any tags at all.

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.