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 × mechanics: what the pairings end up with
every mechanics 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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Combat | 19 | 9 | 81 | under 20 | 26.5% | ordinary ×0.83 | 238 d |    | |
| Character Customization | 14 | 3 | 35 | under 20 | 24.5% | ordinary ×0.93 | 546 d |   | |
| RPG | 30 | 9 | 21 | 33.3% 19%–51% | 22.7% | ordinary ×0.96 | 118 d |  | |
| Simulation | 31 | 11 | 25 | 32.3% 19%–50% | 22.2% | ordinary ×0.82 | 211 d |  | |
| Management | 6 | 2 | 671 | under 20 | 20.5% | ordinary ×0.79 | 238 d | | |
| Tactical | 6 | 2 | 865 | under 20 | 20.5% | ordinary ×0.65 | 238 d |  | |
| JRPG | 14 | 7 | 48 | under 20 | 18.6% | cliché ×2.36 | 118 d |   | |
| Automobile Sim | 5 | 2 | 671 | under 20 | 17.4% | cliché ×1.86 | 315 d |    | |
| Crafting | 5 | 0 | 624 | under 20 | 17.4% | ordinary ×0.60 | 447 d |   | |
| Sandbox | 5 | 0 | 624 | under 20 | 17.4% | ordinary ×0.86 | 447 d |  | |
| Immersive Sim | 6 | 1 | 98 | under 20 | 16.7% | ordinary ×0.58 | 447 d | | |
| Physics | 12 | 6 | 60 | under 20 | 16.7% | ordinary ×0.93 | 328 d | | |
| Turn-Based Combat | 12 | 5 | 15 | under 20 | 16.7% | cliché ×1.59 | 251 d | | |
| Strategy | 18 | 6 | 21 | under 20 | 16.7% | ordinary ×0.63 | 238 d | | |
| Action | 69 | 23 | 19 | 18.8% 11%–30% | 16.1% | ordinary ×0.91 | 118 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.
