The niche at a glance
Mars on Steam: 343 released games, 74 in the last 12 months, 124 announced and still unreleased. Median lifetime reviews: 6. 56% of them never reached 10 reviews. Free to play: 10%. Mars 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 included114 releasesReleases per year
outcomes count only games released more than 90 days ago, anything newer has not had time to gather reviewsMars × presentation: what the pairings end up with
every presentation tag shipped with Mars at least 5 times · same window× mechanics× presentation| Mars × | 3 y | 12 m | median | ≥500 | adjusted | vs chance | last hit | who made it | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Realistic | 16 | 6 | 2 | under 20 | 12.0% | cliché ×2.16 | 256 d |    | |
| Cute | 5 | 0 | 17 | under 20 | 9.3% | ordinary ×0.50 | 410 d |  | |
| Minimalist | 8 | 1 | 4 | under 20 | 8.3% | ordinary ×1.09 | 410 d | | |
| Funny | 9 | 2 | 17 | under 20 | 8.0% | ordinary ×0.62 | 383 d |  | |
| First-Person | 20 | 5 | 14 | 5.0% 1%–24% | 5.8% | ordinary ×1.35 | 256 d | | |
| Stylized | 21 | 4 | 14 | 4.8% 1%–23% | 5.7% | ordinary ×1.28 | 383 d | | |
| Third Person | 21 | 7 | 9 | 4.8% 1%–23% | 5.7% | cliché ×1.71 | 314 d |  | |
| Atmospheric | 22 | 4 | 8 | 4.5% 1%–22% | 5.6% | ordinary ×1.15 | 218 d |  | |
| Colorful | 22 | 6 | 5 | 4.5% 1%–22% | 5.6% | ordinary ×1.04 | 410 d | | |
| Dialogue Heavy | 5 | 1 | 31 | under 20 | 5.3% | ordinary ×0.59 | never | ||
| Side Scroller | 5 | 3 | 6 | under 20 | 5.3% | ordinary ×0.92 | never | ||
| Text-Based | 5 | 1 | 0 | under 20 | 5.3% | ordinary ×0.70 | never | ||
| Surreal | 6 | 1 | 2 | under 20 | 5.1% | ordinary ×0.76 | never | ||
| 2.5D | 7 | 2 | 6 | under 20 | 4.9% | cliché ×2.14 | never | ||
| Old School | 7 | 1 | 1 | under 20 | 4.9% | cliché ×1.71 | never |
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.
