Underground games on Steam
The niche at a glance
Underground on Steam: 1,283 released games, 517 in the last 12 months, 757 announced and still unreleased. Median lifetime reviews: 10. 49% of them never reached 10 reviews. Free to play: 9%. Underground 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 included563 releasesReleases per year
outcomes count only games released more than 90 days ago, anything newer has not had time to gather reviewsUnderground × presentation: what the pairings end up with
every presentation tag shipped with Underground at least 5 times · same window× mechanics× presentation| Underground × | 3 y | 12 m | median | ≥500 | adjusted | vs chance | last hit | who made it | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violent | 20 | 9 | 12 | 20.0% 8%–42% | 13.3% | ordinary ×0.83 | 195 d |    | |
| Voxel | 19 | 10 | 34 | under 20 | 11.1% | cliché ×4.74 | 189 d |    | |
| First-Person | 178 | 62 | 13 | 11.2% 7%–17% | 10.8% | cliché ×1.98 | 165 d |   | |
| Relaxing | 59 | 30 | 15 | 11.9% 6%–23% | 10.5% | ordinary ×0.82 | 131 d |    | |
| Horror | 130 | 43 | 13 | 10.8% 7%–17% | 10.2% | cliché ×1.98 | 173 d | | |
| Isometric | 13 | 4 | 3 | under 20 | 10.1% | ordinary ×1.00 | 189 d |   | |
| Gore | 23 | 11 | 12 | 13.0% 5%–32% | 10.1% | ordinary ×1.04 | 195 d |  | |
| Dark | 117 | 39 | 13 | 10.3% 6%–17% | 9.7% | cliché ×2.57 | 189 d |  | |
| Story Rich | 88 | 30 | 14 | 10.2% 5%–18% | 9.6% | ordinary ×0.96 | 173 d |  | |
| 3D | 227 | 81 | 12 | 9.3% 6%–14% | 9.0% | ordinary ×1.42 | 165 d | | |
| Realistic | 85 | 25 | 13 | 9.4% 5%–17% | 8.9% | cliché ×1.54 | 182 d |  | |
| Psychological | 19 | 7 | 14 | under 20 | 8.5% | ordinary ×1.35 | 646 d |  | |
| Colorful | 101 | 41 | 8 | 8.9% 5%–16% | 8.5% | ordinary ×0.85 | 165 d |  | |
| Atmospheric | 168 | 59 | 13 | 8.3% 5%–14% | 8.2% | cliché ×1.62 | 165 d | | |
| Pixel Graphics | 148 | 44 | 14 | 7.4% 4%–13% | 7.3% | cliché ×1.68 | 91 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.
