The niche at a glance
VR on Steam: 7,469 released games, 684 in the last 12 months, 1,210 announced and still unreleased. Median lifetime reviews: 8. 54% of them never reached 10 reviews. Free to play: 19%. VR 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 included1,411 releasesReleases per year
outcomes count only games released more than 90 days ago, anything newer has not had time to gather reviewsVR × mechanics: what the pairings end up with
every mechanics tag shipped with VR at least 5 times · same window× setting× mechanics| VR × | 3 y | 12 m | median | ≥500 | adjusted | vs chance | last hit | who made it | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Souls-like | 10 | 3 | 188 | under 20 | 21.1% | avoided ×0.35 | 96 d |    | |
| Fighting | 16 | 1 | 35 | under 20 | 20.4% | ordinary ×1.38 | 453 d |    | |
| Automobile Sim | 41 | 12 | 33 | 26.8% 16%–42% | 20.2% | cliché ×1.60 | 119 d |    | |
| Driving | 52 | 19 | 13 | 21.2% 12%–34% | 17.1% | ordinary ×1.34 | 119 d | | |
| Tactical | 63 | 14 | 17 | 17.5% 10%–29% | 14.9% | ordinary ×0.56 | 95 d |    | |
| Stealth | 70 | 19 | 23 | 15.7% 9%–26% | 13.7% | ordinary ×0.99 | 95 d |   | |
| Gun Customization | 35 | 10 | 15 | 17.1% 8%–33% | 13.3% | cliché ×1.77 | 101 d |   | |
| Co-op Campaign | 21 | 5 | 43 | 19.0% 8%–40% | 13.0% | ordinary ×1.05 | 351 d |   | |
| Character Customization | 117 | 29 | 26 | 13.7% 9%–21% | 12.7% | ordinary ×0.72 | 96 d |    | |
| Open World | 102 | 34 | 13 | 13.7% 8%–22% | 12.6% | ordinary ×0.93 | 119 d |  | |
| Nonlinear | 23 | 8 | 9 | 17.4% 7%–37% | 12.4% | ordinary ×0.52 | 446 d |   | |
| Card Battler | 7 | 2 | 36 | under 20 | 12.3% | avoided ×0.10 | 188 d |   | |
| Destruction | 40 | 12 | 6 | 15.0% 7%–29% | 12.2% | ordinary ×1.36 | 101 d |   | |
| Survival Horror | 75 | 15 | 15 | 13.3% 7%–23% | 11.9% | ordinary ×0.96 | 145 d | | |
| Class-Based | 9 | 4 | 74 | under 20 | 11.5% | ordinary ×0.40 | 173 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.
