Steam marketing research, from public data
Studies of thousands of upcoming Steam games, read from public Steam data around each Next Fest. Every figure says what was measured, when, and on how many games. No game is named. Free to quote with a link.
- October 17–18, 2026
Which social networks do Steam Next Fest games link? A study of 7,592 store pages
43% of the 7,592 games on Valve's Next Fest October 2026 preview list link no social network on their Steam page. The 100 most followed games link a median of 5, Discord (81%) and X (78%) first. The median Discord linked on these pages has 42 members, 9 of them online, and 1 invite in 11 is dead.
43% of the games link no social network on their Steam page
- October 17–18, 2026
Do old Steam demos still get played? 978 demos before Next Fest
The weekend before Steam Next Fest October 2026, demos released less than two weeks earlier peaked at a median of 15.5 concurrent players per 1,000 Steam followers, against 2.7 for demos out more than six months: almost 6 times more. 27% of the older demos had nobody playing in any reading.
15.5 peak players per 1,000 followers, demos under 2 weeks old
- October 19–23, 2026
Which niches got their demos played at Steam Next Fest October 2026? 5,128 small games
Among 5,128 Steam Next Fest October 2026 demos from games with fewer than 500 Steam followers, the median demo peaked at 2 concurrent players and 9% reached 10 or more. Co-op, idle, incremental, cozy and organizing niches had the largest shares at 10+; platformers, shooters and shoot 'em ups the smallest, at every follower size.
2 peak players for the median demo, games under 500 followers
Want the version for your own game? The guides explain what to do with these numbers, and the wishlist calculator reads any Steam game's public data.