Abstract
Problem: Can scraping and analyzing Steam's public data reveal useful insights for game developers about what makes games successful?
Approach: Tim Cain reacts to a video by "Newbie Indie Game Dev" who scraped data from over 140,000 games and demos on Steam (as of October 2024), analyzing release trends, review patterns, common tags, tag pairs, and genre gaps. Tim adds his own experienced developer perspective on what the data actually means.
Findings: Steam releases are accelerating (~70 games/day in 2024), over half the top 50 games by positive reviews are indie, almost no company has more than one game in the top 50 (except Valve with six), and there are many highly-rated games that almost nobody has discovered. Uncommon tag pairs may signal opportunities — but also traps.
Key insight: Data can point you in a direction, but it is not a recipe for success — "the map is not the country," and you still have to climb the mountain yourself.
1. The Scale of Steam
As of October 2024, Steam hosts over 200,000 apps. Filtering to just games and demos still leaves over 140,000 entries. In 2024, roughly 70 games per day were being released — over 25,000 for the year — and the growth curve is accelerating, not linear.
Tim emphasizes his appreciation for data-driven analysis over opinion-based content. The original video by "Newbie Indie Game Dev" presents objective, scraped data rather than subjective trend-chasing.
2. Indies Dominate the Top
A striking finding: over half of the top 50 games on Steam (ranked by positive reviews) are indie titles. This means indie developers are competing at the very highest level of player satisfaction.
However, very few companies have more than one game in the top 50. Valve leads with six entries; only three other companies have two; everyone else — including major publishers — has at most one. Tim's takeaway: making a great game is "almost lightning in a bottle." Even large, well-resourced companies rarely repeat top-tier success.
3. No Game Is Universally Hated
Even the bottom-ranked games on Steam — those with over 80% negative reviews — still have some positive reviews. Tim notes that no game he saw was 100% negative. Every game finds at least someone who enjoys it. Dismissing those positive reviewers as "dumb" or "bots" is just interpretation — the data simply shows that taste is diverse.
4. Discoverability Is Everything
With 140,000+ games on the platform, Tim stresses that discoverability is the critical challenge. Many games are positively reviewed but have almost no reviews at all — meaning nobody knows they exist. The people who do find them think they're great.
Tim puts the scale in perspective: if you spent one minute looking at each game's Steam page, eight hours a day with no days off, it would take 292 days to see them all — and by then, tens of thousands more would have been added. There are great games out there that players are missing, often because they spend time complaining about games they dislike instead of searching for ones they'd love.
5. Uncommon Tag Pairs: Opportunity or Trap?
The original video identified tag pairs that were rare or nonexistent on Steam, suggesting potential market gaps. Tim acknowledges the appeal but warns against treating these as easy wins.
His mountain-climbing analogy: pointing to an unclimbed mountain doesn't mean it's easy to climb. It probably hasn't been climbed for a good reason — it may be extremely difficult. Similarly, an uncommon tag pair might represent a genuine opportunity with low competition in Steam search results, but it might also be uncommon because:
- The combination simply doesn't work well together as a game concept
- Others have tried and failed
- It requires skills or design expertise most developers don't have
- It's genuinely a bad game idea
5.1. The Deck Builder Example
Tim uses deck builders as a concrete example. They're currently popular, and the data shows missing sub-genre combinations. But that doesn't mean you can just make a deck builder in an underserved niche and succeed. Maybe no one can succeed at some of those combinations. Maybe you're not a good deck builder designer — Tim admits he isn't, despite having a toy prototype. The genre requires specific design skills that differ from other types of games.
6. The Publisher Trap
Tim warns against approaching this data the way many publishers do: "We've identified an opportunity — let's do it." The word "opportunity" implies that pursuing it leads to success, but some of these gaps exist because they're genuinely bad ideas or impossibly hard to execute well. Data identifies directions, not destinations.
7. Data Points the Way, But Isn't the Path
Tim draws a Buddhist analogy he's used before: teachings point to the path to enlightenment, but the teaching itself isn't the path. Similarly, "the map is not the country." This video and its data point in directions where successful games probably lie, but:
- You still have to do the work
- You still have to be skilled at making the specific type of game
- Every path to success is uphill
- You still have to climb the mountain
The data is not a recipe for making a successful game. It's a pointer toward past successes and possible paths to future ones — and all of those paths require real effort and ability to traverse.
8. References
- Tim Cain. YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7hZs-y4x2A