Old School games on Steam
The niche at a glance
Old School on Steam: 7,354 released games, 1,584 in the last 12 months, 2,833 announced and still unreleased. Of the 3,313 released between three years and 90 days ago, the median has 8 lifetime reviews. 53% of them never reached 10 reviews. Free to play: 9%. Old School 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 included3,313 releasesReleases per year
outcomes count only games released more than 90 days ago, anything newer has not had time to gather reviewsOld School × mechanics: what the pairings end up with
every mechanics tag shipped with Old School at least 5 times · same window× setting× mechanics| Old School × | 3 y | 12 m | median | ≥500 | adjusted | vs chance | last hit | who made it | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMORPG | 25 | 8 | 167 | 28.0% 14%–48% | 18.5% | ordinary ×1.12 | 146 d |    | |
| God Game | 9 | 3 | 74 | under 20 | 14.9% | ordinary ×0.66 | 965 d |    | |
| Sandbox | 100 | 32 | 18 | 16.0% 10%–24% | 14.4% | ordinary ×0.52 | 182 d |   | |
| Offroad | 11 | 4 | 62 | under 20 | 14.0% | ordinary ×1.47 | 329 d |    | |
| Character Customization | 220 | 69 | 15 | 14.5% 10%–20% | 13.9% | ordinary ×0.99 | 90 d | | |
| Crafting | 85 | 35 | 19 | 15.3% 9%–24% | 13.6% | ordinary ×0.58 | 146 d | | |
| Boomer Shooter | 159 | 58 | 18 | 13.8% 9%–20% | 13.0% | cliché ×5.94 | 133 d |    | |
| Life Sim | 53 | 18 | 44 | 15.1% 8%–27% | 12.8% | ordinary ×0.43 | 153 d |   | |
| Management | 139 | 56 | 19 | 12.9% 8%–20% | 12.2% | ordinary ×0.61 | 176 d |  | |
| Job Simulator | 8 | 4 | 28 | under 20 | 11.9% | avoided ×0.33 | 127 d |   | |
| FPS | 263 | 79 | 20 | 12.2% 9%–17% | 11.8% | ordinary ×1.46 | 90 d |  | |
| Class-Based | 78 | 25 | 18 | 12.8% 7%–22% | 11.6% | cliché ×1.88 | 146 d |    | |
| Bullet Heaven | 27 | 13 | 26 | 14.8% 6%–32% | 11.3% | ordinary ×0.93 | 405 d |    | |
| Loot | 81 | 37 | 12 | 12.3% 7%–21% | 11.2% | ordinary ×1.12 | 204 d |  | |
| 4X | 11 | 7 | 22 | under 20 | 10.7% | ordinary ×0.90 | 280 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.
