The niche at a glance
MOBA on Steam: 602 released games, 124 in the last 12 months, 260 announced and still unreleased. Median lifetime reviews: 14. 40% of them never reached 10 reviews. Free to play: 41%. MOBA 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 included207 releasesReleases per year
outcomes count only games released more than 90 days ago, anything newer has not had time to gather reviewsMOBA × setting: what the pairings end up with
every setting tag shipped with MOBA at least 5 times · same window× setting× presentation| MOBA × | 3 y | 12 m | median | ≥500 | adjusted | vs chance | last hit | who made it | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fantasy | 52 | 13 | 22 | 23.1% 14%–36% | 18.5% | cliché ×1.74 | 201 d |    | |
| Post-apocalyptic | 11 | 1 | 17 | under 20 | 17.2% | ordinary ×1.12 | 201 d |    | |
| Mythology | 8 | 0 | 31 | under 20 | 15.5% | cliché ×2.25 | 777 d |    | |
| Military | 21 | 5 | 18 | 19.0% 8%–40% | 13.0% | cliché ×3.87 | 138 d |    | |
| War | 24 | 6 | 15 | 16.7% 7%–36% | 12.1% | cliché ×4.30 | 138 d |  | |
| 1990's | 8 | 3 | 37 | under 20 | 11.9% | ordinary ×0.61 | 138 d |  | |
| Magic | 27 | 7 | 19 | 14.8% 6%–32% | 11.3% | cliché ×2.36 | 229 d |   | |
| Sci-fi | 27 | 6 | 10 | 14.8% 6%–32% | 11.3% | ordinary ×1.49 | 390 d |  | |
| Artificial Intelligence | 13 | 5 | 10 | under 20 | 10.1% | cliché ×1.66 | 141 d |  | |
| Mechs | 5 | 1 | 14 | under 20 | 9.3% | cliché ×3.93 | 469 d | | |
| Dark Fantasy | 6 | 1 | 9 | under 20 | 9.0% | ordinary ×0.87 | 798 d | | |
| Sniper | 6 | 2 | 14 | under 20 | 9.0% | cliché ×4.84 | 393 d | | |
| Zombies | 6 | 0 | 80 | under 20 | 9.0% | ordinary ×1.09 | 603 d | | |
| Tanks | 7 | 1 | 80 | under 20 | 8.6% | cliché ×5.98 | 982 d |  | |
| Sports | 21 | 7 | 13 | 9.5% 3%–29% | 8.1% | cliché ×2.55 | 141 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.
