Text-Based games on Steam
The niche at a glance
Text-Based on Steam: 5,322 released games, 1,510 in the last 12 months, 2,289 announced and still unreleased. Of the 2,626 released between three years and 90 days ago, the median has 12 lifetime reviews. 47% of them never reached 10 reviews. Free to play: 14%. Text-Based 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 included2,626 releasesReleases per year
outcomes count only games released more than 90 days ago, anything newer has not had time to gather reviewsText-Based × setting: what the pairings end up with
every setting tag shipped with Text-Based at least 5 times · same window× setting× mechanics| Text-Based × | 3 y | 12 m | median | ≥500 | adjusted | vs chance | last hit | who made it | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Job Simulator | 9 | 3 | 68 | under 20 | 11.5% | ordinary ×0.73 | 279 d |   | |
| Football (Soccer) | 20 | 9 | 18 | 15.0% 5%–36% | 10.8% | cliché ×2.70 | 735 d |    | |
| Espionage | 11 | 7 | 1 | under 20 | 10.7% | cliché ×3.81 | 106 d |  | |
| Medical Sim | 14 | 7 | 10 | under 20 | 9.8% | cliché ×1.63 | 150 d |   | |
| Shop Keeper | 14 | 14 | 6 | under 20 | 9.8% | ordinary ×0.62 | 236 d |  | |
| Mythology | 45 | 11 | 24 | 11.1% 5%–23% | 9.7% | ordinary ×1.19 | 581 d |    | |
| Cooking | 26 | 9 | 13 | 11.5% 4%–29% | 9.4% | ordinary ×0.55 | 558 d |    | |
| Aliens | 28 | 12 | 23 | 10.7% 4%–27% | 9.0% | ordinary ×0.46 | 121 d |   | |
| Detective | 261 | 99 | 16 | 9.2% 6%–13% | 9.0% | cliché ×3.40 | 98 d |    | |
| Football (American) | 6 | 3 | 3 | under 20 | 8.9% | cliché ×2.72 | 650 d |  | |
| World War II | 6 | 1 | 17 | under 20 | 8.9% | ordinary ×0.57 | 215 d |  | |
| Crime | 111 | 42 | 15 | 9.0% 5%–16% | 8.6% | cliché ×2.65 | 98 d |    | |
| Language Learning | 7 | 5 | 6 | under 20 | 8.6% | cliché ×6.05 | 121 d | | |
| Underwater | 7 | 4 | 6 | under 20 | 8.6% | avoided ×0.30 | 719 d |  | |
| Cats | 32 | 11 | 17 | 9.4% 3%–24% | 8.3% | ordinary ×0.58 | 229 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.
