Narrative games on Steam
The niche at a glance
Narrative on Steam: 1,252 released games, 619 in the last 12 months, 914 announced and still unreleased. Median lifetime reviews: 27. 33% of them never reached 10 reviews. Free to play: 10%. Narrative 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 included558 releasesReleases per year
outcomes count only games released more than 90 days ago, anything newer has not had time to gather reviewsNarrative × setting: what the pairings end up with
every setting tag shipped with Narrative at least 5 times · same window× setting× mechanics| Narrative × | 3 y | 12 m | median | ≥500 | adjusted | vs chance | last hit | who made it | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Animals | 5 | 2 | 1,079 | under 20 | 21.3% | cliché ×1.61 | 181 d |    | |
| Futuristic | 21 | 5 | 56 | 33.3% 17%–55% | 20.3% | ordinary ×0.82 | 201 d |    | |
| Sci-fi | 62 | 22 | 37 | 24.2% 15%–36% | 19.9% | ordinary ×1.16 | 145 d |   | |
| Alternate History | 13 | 5 | 39 | under 20 | 19.2% | cliché ×1.91 | 182 d |   | |
| Conspiracy | 13 | 5 | 331 | under 20 | 19.2% | cliché ×4.14 | 455 d |   | |
| Historical | 19 | 8 | 50 | under 20 | 18.8% | cliché ×1.78 | 152 d |  | |
| Detective | 51 | 19 | 65 | 21.6% 12%–35% | 17.4% | cliché ×3.41 | 161 d |  | |
| Cats | 12 | 4 | 28 | under 20 | 16.7% | ordinary ×1.17 | 187 d |  | |
| Female Protagonist | 105 | 37 | 43 | 18.1% 12%–27% | 16.3% | cliché ×2.23 | 159 d |   | |
| Dystopian | 13 | 2 | 70 | under 20 | 16.2% | cliché ×3.89 | 201 d |   | |
| Mystery | 170 | 72 | 41 | 15.9% 11%–22% | 14.9% | cliché ×4.24 | 181 d |   | |
| Crime | 36 | 16 | 65 | 19.4% 10%–35% | 14.9% | cliché ×4.04 | 125 d |   | |
| LGBTQ+ | 40 | 17 | 49 | 17.5% 9%–32% | 13.9% | cliché ×2.84 | 145 d |  | |
| 1980s | 12 | 6 | 76 | under 20 | 13.5% | ordinary ×1.04 | 159 d |  | |
| Space | 21 | 10 | 37 | 19.0% 8%–40% | 13.0% | ordinary ×0.92 | 221 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.
