At the conclusion of the June 2024 Steam Next Fest, Valve created a special page commemorating the 50 most-played demos during the fest.
In this mid-week mini-blog I am taking a look at some of the trends I noticed while browsing those charts. (The first thing I noticed was there were only 48 games listed. Maybe some games got pulled?)
I like looking at this list because it gives us a good preview of the genres that players want from Steam.
General impressions
Overall, Steam players love those crafty-buildy-simulationy games. It hasn’t changed. I looked at each game and made an assessment of the game’s primary genre. You can find the full list, with the genres I picked for them in the Appendix below. Here is my genre breakdown chart for all the games and how many were in each.
To understand what I mean when I say CRAFTY-BUILDY, look at the most represented genres: Open World Survival Craft, Roguelike, City Builder, Roguelike Deckbuilder, Farming Sim, and Management. These are games where you have to manage a space by placing objects and managing resources to upgrade it how you see fit. These are not games with linear content, or levels that are consumed once and then you move on. These games are played over and over.
There were a strong contingent of more traditional linear games with Souls-likes, and one Horror game. There were also 5 “Adventure” games. I classified “Adventure” as any game where you go around, talk to someone, find a cool sword, and then kill a boss.
How long were demos?
I played 10 of the 50 demos because I want to understand how developers can slice their full game into a 30 minute play chunk. I am also interested in how the games encourage players to wishlist the game.
I started a let’s play series on my premium idea site: Game Marketing Ideas. I am discounting the content by 75% until July 1st, 2024. Be sure to pick it up.
I made a couple of the let’s plays public so you can get a taste of what is behind the paywall Game Marketing Ideas.
Overall demos tend to have long horizontal slices of gameplay. They show all the major mechanics. The demo is limited in how many levels or environments there are.
What was missing?
What genres were not in the top 50? Platformers and Puzzle games. I repeat, there were no platformers in the top 50 most-played demos. There was one adventure game that has puzzle elements: Riven. But that is a classic game that was a hit 30 years ago.
There were also no Idlers. I have found a number of those games do very well (see Spirit City: Lofi Sessions as an example). I wonder if they are a slow burn so just don’t get as much visibility during the rush of the 1 week of Steam Next Fest.
There was only 1 horror game in the list. When I do annual roundups of the top games of each year, horror usually has the most appearances in the list. I suspect that horror games didn’t show up because many of the games here were featured in one of the E3-likes. Small indie horror games don’t typically get covered in those big shows so maybe they got drowned out.
Can you control the main character?
I have a hunch that controlling the main character (basically if you push up on the control stick the character moves) is a very risky way of making games on Steam for first time developers. Steam shoppers are very picky about “jank.” First time developers have a hard time making controls feel “good” enough to satisfy the very selective Steam players.
The alternative to controlling the main player is to focus on genres where you control menus (city builders, strategy games, and management games), cards (roguelike deckbuilders), and tools (the claw in Dungeon Clawler) that indirectly help the main character
By playing many of the games and watching trailers of those that I didn’t have time to play, I estimate that 42% of the top 50 games did not control the main character, but instead controlled menus.
Graphics
Most of the top 50 games were very beautiful 3D games with a boatload of shaders and particle effects making them shine.
However there were 6 pixel art games:
- Metal Slug Tactics
- Die in the Dungeon
- Lords of Ravage
- Megaloot
- Super Fantasy Kingdom
- Drill Core
- Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers
Note that all of the pixelart games were deep systems driven games instead of adventure games.
This goes to my theory that if your game can’t match the competition with super high-fidelity 3D graphics, you must provide deep deep strategy and simulation.
I also want to be clear that I love pixelart. I think it looks great. I think these pixelart games are beautiful (Look up Lords of Ravage in particular). But, I do acknowledge that to generations of gamers raised on 3D consoles, players definitely are more “wowed” visually by 3D games.
Appendix A: Chris Z’s Assigned-Genres
| Game | CZ Assigned Genre |
| Once Human | Open World Survival Craft |
| Level Zero: Extraction | Extraction Shooter FPS |
| Test Drive Unlimiated Solar Crown | Racing |
| Tiny Glade | Builder |
| Wizard of Legend 2 | Roguelike |
| Duckside | Battle Royale |
| Metal Slug Tactics | Tactics |
| The Alters | Adventure |
| Lost Castle 2 | Roguelike |
| Dungeon Clawler | Roguelike |
| Aloft | Open World Survival Craft |
| Bus: Bro u Survived | Party Game |
| ASKA | Open World Survival Craft |
| Enotria: The Last Song | Souls-like |
| Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn | Souls-like |
| I Am Your Beast | FPS |
| Tactical Breach Wizards | Tactics |
| SWORN | Roguelike |
| Goblin Cleanup | Simulation |
| Meme Mayhem | Autobattler |
| Artisan TD | Tower Defense |
| Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers | Roguelike Deckbuilder |
| Amanda the Adventurer 2 | Horror |
| Kill Knight | Roguelike |
| Descending The Woods | Farming Sim |
| Caravan SandWitch | Adventure |
| REKA | Adventure |
| Drill Core | Roguelike |
| Mirthwood | Farming Sim |
| Super Fantasy Kingdom | City Builder |
| Yaoling: Mythical Journey | Creature collector |
| Megaloot | Backpack Autobattler |
| Endzone 2 | Colony Sim |
| Hollywood Animal | Management |
| Handmancers | Roguelike Deckbuilder |
| Lords of Ravage | RPG |
| Die in the Dungeon | Roguelike Deckbuilder |
| Kaiserpunk | City Builder |
| Ripple in Dirac Sea | Extraction Shooter FPS |
| Pawn Planet | Management |
| Dungeons of Hinterberg | Adventure |
| Blacksmith Master | Management |
| First Dwarf | Adventure |
| Airborne Empire | City Builder |
| Maximum Football | Sports |
| Riven | Puzzle Adventure |
| Haunted House Renovator | Simulation |
| Republic of Pirates | City Builder |
Appendix B: Screenshot of the main page
