[The GameDiscoverCo game discovery newsletter is written by ‘how people find your game’ expert & company founder Simon Carless, and is a regular look at how people discover and buy video games in the 2020s.]
We’re sizzling to trot, and hitting the weekend by getting again to what we do finest: firing PC/console online game information at ya in variegated styles and sizes till you beg for mercy. Our lead story at present (begin begging now!) makes use of our Steam Fan Snapshot panel to take a look at discovery in a helpful new method…
Earlier than we begin, our pals on the Video Recreation Historical past Basis have a great new YouTube video out profiling Takumi Kawagoe, a seldom-discussed Nintendo programmer who pioneered the 3D digicam methods for video games like Tremendous Mario 64. (That’s again within the ‘90s when 3D free-roam video games had been a relative rarity!)
[THE DEEPEST PC/CONSOLE DATA? You can get a free demo of our GameDiscoverCo Pro company-wide ‘Steam deep dive’ & console data, inc. MCP, by reaching out today – >110 orgs have it. Or, signing up to GDCo Plus gets extra newsletter and Discord access, plus more.]
Let’s finish the week by every kind of useful recreation discovery & platform information, as follows:
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Our buddies at Footprints.gg/ICO have a new ‘trad media’ discovery chart (above), and it’s a busy one, with GTA VI (new soundtrack reveals) inevitably topping issues, however Blizzcon buzz (Starcraft, Diablo, WoW) additionally charting laborious & the launched/trending Wardogs and Marvel’s Wolverine additionally excessive up within the charts…
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There’s a v. unsourced rumor about a 2027 Xbox Game Pass revamp, ft. two essential tiers: “Adverts tier will price $12.99 a month… Recreation Cross with out advertisements will price $19.99 per 30 days.” There could be no (first-party?) Day 1 video games on the service from Feb. 2027, and cloud streaming is an add-on. (The tipper bought tier adjustments proper in 2025.)
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We used GDCo Professional information to look at trending unreleased Steam demos, and there’s two large new entries: pixel-y sim Graveyard Keeper 2 (#1) had a >25k CCU demo forward of its debut subsequent week (saves carry throughout!), and (additionally) Tinybuild’s cyberpunk shopkeeping simulator Probably Stolen (#2) did nicely with >10k CCU.
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A counter-point on GTA VI sending console hardware sales stratospheric now – in line with Circana re: U.S. gross sales, the week of the GTA VI gameplay showcase, gross sales had been up 14%, however per Mat Piscatella: “PS5 grew 17%, XBS 9%… the mixed enhance… amounted to lower than 8k items.” (They might go gaga when it comes out, tho.)
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Steam’s top new release charts for August 2026 are out, and whereas GDCo already estimated high video games, it’s good to see them tiered formally. Additionally, high DLC within the combine contains this big STALKER 2 expansion, the Elden Ring Tarnished Pack, & varied Darkest Dungeon, Jurassic World Evo 3 & Useless By Daylight DLCs.
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Microlinks, Pt.1: Xbox has new Game Pass titles inc. Gears Of Conflict: E-Day & Minecraft Dungeons II and had a Tokyo Game Show streaming showcase; the ‘child Kinect’-ish Nex Playground got $150m in funding & ‘nears 1m active subscribers’; right here’s more about Valve’s Fex & Lepton ARM/Android compatibility layers.
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Re: the Steam function to ‘identify your writer web page as your franchise web page’ to get a ‘extra from this pub’ micro-banner on a recreation’s particulars web page? Dangerous information: you’ll be able to’t choose your writer web page any extra. (Reminder: a franchise is particularly video games which can be ‘built in the same fictional universe, gameplay style, or intellectual property’.)
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Roblox issues: one hot stat from the Roblox Dev Conf: “High 10 creators now common $65.7M a 12 months. High 100: $10.8M. High 1,000: $1.4M. All roughly quadrupled since 2020.” (Although a commenter notes avg makes issues look method higher than median!); the Roblox Innovation Awards had been gained by +1 Velocity Keyboard Escape, TTK & extra.
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Advertising guide Arnaud De Sousa is not a fan of the Steam AI Gaming Festival. And who is aware of, you may not be too? (Clarifying notes: it’s a 3rd social gathering fest that Steam didn’t ask for, it hasn’t (?) had any entrance web page visibility, and Arnaud noticed paid/advert parts which may make Valve re-examine it.)
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‘Authorities x video games’ issues: the Australian authorities will talk to Steam about credit cards being the only age check for grownup video games (They need ‘equity’, Steam doesn’t wish to add extra invasive checks?); the European Union is proposing social media bans for under-13s, with on-line video games probably a part of restrictions.
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Microlinks, Pt.2: images of Meta’s ‘Project Phoenix’ MR headset leaked forward of its unveiling subsequent week; Apple Arcade’s October 2026 additions embody a Pusheen-themed ‘cozy cat collector’ & a River Metropolis Ransom-themed ‘Survivors’ title (!); top August mobile grossers headed by Honor of Kings, Gossip Harbor, PUBG.
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It’s possible you’ll recall us launching the Steam Fan Snapshot data set earlier this year. It’s now as much as >16,000 worldwide Steam gamers who responded to on-line giveaways and answered varied questions for us, and we’ve tied responses in to their Steam catalogs.
However this time, we wished to focus in additional depth on a core query we requested: how these ‘Steam followers’ discover out about video video games. The choices we selected are above, and right here’s the chances (you’ll be able to choose a number of solutions) throughout the entire survey:
With the understanding that these are in all probability much less informal gamers, we nonetheless get a robust concept of the unfold. Notably notable?
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Phrase of mouth is the third-strongest methodology: at 44.9%, it’s behind solely long-form movies (57%) and the Steam platform itself (55.8%).
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Shortform video and livestreaming are mounting a cost: given they’re considerably (!) newer, 37.5% and 35.2% is a fairly respectable chunk of gamers.
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Stay textual content/chat platforms are nonetheless pretty low: for a few of us who spend an excessive amount of time(TM) on Discord, you may suppose it could be greater than 18%. However no…
In order that’s fascinating sufficient. However we even have the flexibility to filter by participant age. And it’s doing that which outputs the chart that actually made us sit up and take discover:
Please be aware that we’ve color-coded this by row in comparison with the ‘all ages’ rating. So in the event you see one thing in a crimson cell, much less folks in that age group ended up utilizing that methodology for recreation discovery. And there’s some large takeaways right here:
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Quick-form video has an enormous >2x lower as you become old: for underneath 18s, short-form is the #2 most necessary discovery methodology at 53.5%, even outpacing ‘Steam as a platform’. However for 45-54 12 months olds, at 20.2%, it’s second to final.
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Issues like ‘phrase of mouth’ and ‘Steam as a platform’ are far more steady: ‘Phrase of mouth’ hardly varies in any respect at ~45%, besides a dip in over 45 y/o-s, and ‘Steam as a platform’ is powerful all through* at ~55% (ever so marginally decrease, in youthful people.)
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‘Conventional video games media’ additionally has a reasonably large unfold: unsurprisingly, trad web sites are hottest in over 45s for recreation discovery (42.5% in 45-54 12 months olds) however dips all the way in which to 21.2% for underneath 18s.
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Twitch-style livestreaming has an fascinating mid-age peak: averaging round 35%, it’s really a tad decrease for discovery (~31%) for underneath 18s, peaks at ~39% for 25-34 12 months olds, and goes again right down to ~28% for 45-54 12 months olds.
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Discovery from text-based social media is concentrated within the 18-34 age area: your Twitter/X, Threads & BlueSky crew dips majorly to 21.4% for underneath 18s (from its 27.5% common) and peaks within the 18-24 vary (31.8%).
In some ways, that is apparent: it’s a microcosm of how folks devour content material. However seeing it clearly throughout >15,000 Steam gamers reminds us all: discovery strategies are altering. Rather a lot. And so this information actually hit residence for us…
(*Sure, we all know over 55s usually are much less aware of all discovery strategies on this survey. We presume it’s as a result of they’re set of their methods/know what they like, or one thing?)
We additionally wished to offer a sensible instance of how a recreation’s discovery strategies might be fairly totally different than the norm. Right here’s the Steam Fan Snapshot information for friendslop megahit Peak, throughout nearly 3,000 gamers (>30 min playtime):
One challenge with ‘stylish’ newer video games is that gamers of them are typically paying extra consideration basically. Nonetheless, Peak skews considerably youthful (common age 27, vs 29 median), so that you see an underperformance from ‘trad media’ web sites and dialogue boards, and an overperformance from shortform video and phrase of mouth, amongst others.
Lastly, we additionally checked out how Steam tags/genres of video games various by common age (in the event you performed a recreation with this tag in its High 5 for >5 hours), however there’s simply no room to incorporate right here. (Right here’s the raw data for that, if you wish to test it out for giggles…)
