Nostalgia games on Steam
The niche at a glance
Nostalgia on Steam: 507 released games, 186 in the last 12 months, 240 announced and still unreleased. Median lifetime reviews: 18. 39% of them never reached 10 reviews. Free to play: 7%. Nostalgia 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 included162 releasesReleases per year
outcomes count only games released more than 90 days ago, anything newer has not had time to gather reviewsNostalgia × setting: what the pairings end up with
every setting tag shipped with Nostalgia at least 5 times · same window× setting× mechanics| Nostalgia × | 3 y | 12 m | median | ≥500 | adjusted | vs chance | last hit | who made it | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Magic | 9 | 4 | 312 | under 20 | 18.4% | ordinary ×0.79 | 251 d |    | |
| Military | 7 | 3 | 81 | under 20 | 16.1% | ordinary ×0.96 | 328 d |    | |
| Fantasy | 26 | 9 | 21 | 23.1% 11%–42% | 16.0% | ordinary ×0.93 | 118 d |  | |
| Sports | 14 | 2 | 2 | under 20 | 15.7% | cliché ×1.74 | 546 d |    | |
| Medieval | 5 | 2 | 26 | under 20 | 13.4% | ordinary ×0.58 | 313 d |  | |
| 1980s | 28 | 11 | 13 | 17.9% 8%–36% | 13.2% | cliché ×6.24 | 328 d |  | |
| Female Protagonist | 13 | 7 | 47 | under 20 | 13.2% | ordinary ×0.96 | 182 d |   | |
| Psychological Horror | 16 | 7 | 37 | under 20 | 12.1% | ordinary ×0.96 | 694 d |    | |
| Sci-fi | 10 | 5 | 57 | under 20 | 11.1% | ordinary ×0.84 | 238 d |  | |
| 1990's | 46 | 22 | 12 | 13.0% 6%–26% | 11.1% | cliché ×6.94 | 306 d |  | |
| Cats | 5 | 2 | 47 | under 20 | 9.4% | ordinary ×0.82 | 118 d |  | |
| Futuristic | 5 | 2 | 68 | under 20 | 9.4% | ordinary ×0.69 | 238 d | | |
| Survival Horror | 5 | 1 | 4 | under 20 | 9.4% | ordinary ×0.49 | 848 d | | |
| Mystery | 14 | 10 | 18 | under 20 | 6.9% | ordinary ×1.12 | 182 d | | |
| Thriller | 5 | 3 | 13 | under 20 | 5.4% | ordinary ×0.74 | 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.
