Horror and survival games with crafting in open worlds are among the most popular genres on Steam in 2024
Chris Zukowski, an expert in game marketing, investigated which genres had the most "hits" in the first half of 2024 on Steam — defined as games with a thousand or more reviews*.
Buckshot Roulette
- According to Zukowski's estimates, a total of 8,362 games were released on Steam from January 1 to July 12. Out of these, 232 projects received more than a thousand reviews.
- The leading genre is horror. This genre includes 20 "hits" released in the first half of 2024. By comparison, for the entire year of 2023, only 28 horror games received more than a thousand reviews on Steam.
- In addition to horrors, the top genres included survival games with crafting elements in open worlds (16 "hits"), adult games (nine "hits"), clickers (eight "hits"), simulators (seven "hits"), city builders (seven "hits"), management games (seven "hits"), farming simulators (seven "hits"), and roguelike deck builders (four "hits").
- 3D games with PlayStation 1 aesthetics and low-polygon graphics, such as Crow Country and Buckshot Roulette, are also trending.
- Co-op games are extremely popular on Steam. Co-op functionality is present in 21% of all "hits" from the first half of 2024 on Steam, i.e., in 51 games.
- 2D platformers still sell poorly. However, four new 3D platformers have already become "hits," among them Little Kitty, Big City, and Rooftops & Alleys.
- Games resembling Vampire Survivors are experiencing a decline. Only one new release in 2024, Deep Rock Galactic Survivor, managed to gather over a thousand reviews.
*According to Zukowski, a thousand reviews is an almost arbitrary metric. He chose this number because a) most games on Steam do not surpass this threshold, b) it typically corresponds to a gross revenue of $300,000. When a game's revenue reaches this level, Valve starts offering developers various promotional options to increase the game's visibility, such as pop-ups and daily deals.
