Programming games on Steam
The niche at a glance
Programming on Steam: 880 released games, 325 in the last 12 months, 370 announced and still unreleased. Median lifetime reviews: 7. 53% of them never reached 10 reviews. Free to play: 10%. Programming 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 included319 releasesReleases per year
outcomes count only games released more than 90 days ago, anything newer has not had time to gather reviewsProgramming × presentation: what the pairings end up with
every presentation tag shipped with Programming at least 5 times · same window× setting× presentation| Programming × | 3 y | 12 m | median | ≥500 | adjusted | vs chance | last hit | who made it | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First-Person | 32 | 12 | 10 | 15.6% 7%–32% | 12.2% | ordinary ×0.61 | 196 d |    | |
| Pixel Graphics | 67 | 26 | 8 | 11.9% 6%–22% | 10.7% | ordinary ×1.26 | 165 d |    | |
| Horror | 13 | 4 | 10 | under 20 | 10.1% | avoided ×0.28 | 880 d |  | |
| Story Rich | 25 | 6 | 20 | 12.0% 4%–30% | 9.6% | ordinary ×0.62 | 456 d |  | |
| Top-Down | 36 | 8 | 14 | 11.1% 4%–25% | 9.5% | ordinary ×1.32 | 218 d |  | |
| Experimental | 5 | 3 | 33 | under 20 | 9.3% | cliché ×4.84 | 1047 d | | |
| Voxel | 6 | 4 | 1 | under 20 | 9.0% | cliché ×3.93 | 317 d |  | |
| Atmospheric | 30 | 13 | 11 | 10.0% 3%–26% | 8.7% | ordinary ×0.59 | 880 d |  | |
| Colorful | 30 | 6 | 9 | 10.0% 3%–26% | 8.7% | ordinary ×0.77 | 317 d |  | |
| Retro | 43 | 22 | 10 | 9.3% 4%–22% | 8.5% | cliché ×1.58 | 456 d | | |
| 3D | 67 | 20 | 11 | 9.0% 4%–18% | 8.4% | ordinary ×0.85 | 222 d | | |
| Anime | 8 | 2 | 17 | under 20 | 8.3% | avoided ×0.32 | 1000 d | | |
| Surreal | 8 | 1 | 3 | under 20 | 8.3% | ordinary ×0.70 | 880 d | | |
| Cartoony | 20 | 6 | 3 | 10.0% 3%–30% | 8.3% | ordinary ×0.67 | 882 d | | |
| Realistic | 21 | 8 | 41 | 9.5% 3%–29% | 8.1% | ordinary ×0.84 | 393 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.
