Okay. And uh yeah, it's I I guess like this kind of combo of like Stardwelli, Survivor IO, Minecraft, whatnot thing, Roman style. So
that that's what we have here. But it's a nice concept for sure and definitely would work on mobile. Um, I'm good.
It's 4 a.m. drops [music] of golden coins. We're the two and a half gamers. [music] The midnight crew talking UA adverts and game design too. Mat Felix Shak bringing the insight. [music] We're rocking those vibes till the early daylight. Master eyes on the prize tracking data through the cyerspace. Felix like a wizard in disguise. [music] Jacks lift us to the high. Two and a half gamers talking smack. Slow hockey sick got your back. Ads are [music] beautiful. They like the way. Click it fast. Don't delay. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. [music]
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Steam
scanner.
Yes. Okay.
I like to call it full steam ahead, but I I don't think it's catching on.
Mine's catching on as usual.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that that all those like [ __ ] names that Yakob can come up with like oh it's it's always amazing.
I can't wait to hear what he's going to call his birthday next year.
Big birthday.
Sadness multiplier. [laughter]
That's for sure. Oh, hello. Oh, hello. You are listening as well. Great. Welcome to this episode. My name is Mate.
I'm Felix Probert. And we are your Steam Scanners.
And this is our best episode that we enjoy doing the most.
I think
because we don't talk about mobile games.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Actually goes to Flourish, which is Steam.
Yeah. We just talk about how mobile games can actually use it and suck out all the creativity. [laughter]
Yeah. All the creativity from from mobile games. Yes. my creativity.
Anyway,
hey,
let's get to it. So, maybe you noticed that this steam scanner is coming kind of, you know, fast because last one was one month ago because we kind of forgot to put it.
Yeah.
So, that was Q1.
This is Q2 finally.
We recorded where did we record it though? It was recorded at way back.
Yeah,
somewhere there. But yeah, a long time ago. Anyway, we're catching up and trust me, next month will be Q3 and we'll be will be great.
Trust.
Anyway, for those wondering how we do this, again, thanks guys from VG Insights for letting us play with their tool. We select the games that were released in the Q2 timeline and add few filters such as exclude AAA, two and a halfk reviews minimum.
Exactly. And then I just literally handp pick the games as I go through them to kind of filter them off stuff that's obvious like I don't know got one
remake. I'm sorry but this won't help anyone on this segment even though I really enjoyed playing it. And I don't know Subnotica or what like the big big releases again that are not even replay just like double A or so on. So we filter those out also. Anyway, shall we go from the smallest to the biggest this time? We can
small. Yeah, let's do it. I mean, they're all be good and creative, you know. It's not like, you know.
Okay, so let's go smallest to biggest and and you'll see
task bar hero. So, this was very very interesting because it literally remind me the blast from the past where you literally have like system taskbar [laughter] and these guy playing in it.
What? That's the game. It's just
how much is this game cost?
So, it's an idle RPG, the usual kind. But it really reminds me because again, I'm doing this presentation about apps. Most probably when you hear this, I'm already behind it talking about it in games for Barcelona and lots of apps.
You're going to go to games from London. Sorry, London. London.
It's not February. It's not February. All right. So
anyway, so
on the Maldives, what are you talking about?
Yeah, like what are you talking about?
So lots of lots of apps use gaming elements and one of those are widgets. If you remember like our good old friend Finch or our good old friend Dolingo, they put widgets. Widgets is basic. I was saying it like [ __ ] [ __ ]
Cool whips. Cool whips.
Cool whips. Yeah. Who? So they put that stuff on your mobile and then you have it directly on your screen like these guys which could be like
exactly which could be like a good hint.
Uh this is uh what two and a half million units sold and yes and the revenue is uh nowhere to be seen because it's free to play [laughter]
therefore but it still seems
how does it make money? Yeah.
I'm guessing there IP purchases.
No.
For sure. Or no.
True.
No.
So, it's just what? For fun.
What's really daily?
Us mobile guys looking at this being like, but monetization.
Yeah, but I just, you know, I like creating things for players.
Yeah,
it's okay. I don't need to eat.
Should I can eat on retention?
Yeah, exactly.
This is pretty high peak. So,
anyway, the idea seems very enticing to me. So, I really kind of want to stress this one out. This is this was actually the smallest of them all.
You know what I want to stress out? A PVX card. That's how you can actually
use money for for UA. That's way better. Today's episode is brought to a PVX partners because developers now have a new way to fund their UA and marketing and it's called PVX card. So if you're scaling your game and need more capital for UA, here's the deal. Your credit limit grows with your marketing performance. The higher your ro is, the more credit you can have. So go to pvxpartners.com/cards and scale your UA with PVXcard. pvxpartners.com/cards. Go there, get your card.
Okay, next.
It has points.
It has points. Yes. No, wait. Before we move on from Task Bar Hero, is it just a fake task bar that you play it in
or is it actually
It's like a fullyfledged game in it.
It's Yeah.
Okay.
Want to see it? It's just like like you go to it through the task bar.
Oh, okay. Okay.
Maybe it's this really really old ways of like you remember these things that live in.
Yeah, of course.
There we go. Supermarket chaos. So this is a trend that I see here happening
again
which is about you actually sorting the supermarket.
No,
not stuffing it.
[ __ ] you. I mean this is a this is a nightmare. Oh my god. Oh my god. Some someone just vomited inside the supermarket and you need to clean it and sort it in in shelves. Oh my god,
dude. I mean I'm I already want to kill myself
person to like this.
Yes, I already special person to like this.
There will be more games like this.
Yeah, man. This is just this is going to be in mobile within months like
Yeah. So, it's already at 600k revenue and looks great and you'll see the original game soon that this is coming
from. Okay, let's move on.
Why
Oaken Tower? Why?
Which already grows 800k.
It looks
This is really nice.
I know what it is. Clashers.
What?
Castle clusters.
Castle castle busters now.
No, no, no, no, no. It's different. It's actually more close to something like backpack hero setup, I would say. What?
What's going on? So, it's a PvP game actually and it has a lot of progression that you see here, a lot of power layers and [ __ ] And what you do, you actually populate your tower with items and these items are basically your damage dealers.
Okay.
Yes. And they do like stuff on auto combat and that's it. And you just go and destroy other people by putting them against each other. That's it.
which is castle clashes just you don't move or
what is castle clashes castle clashes you need to aim there's terrain there's worms this is not worms this is much more closer to overgeear not impressed anymore I take back my original excitement this looks fun I don't agree this is not my type of game I'd actually rather play
I'd only RPG
would you play this or supermarket market cleaner.
Yeah, we [laughter]
100%. I mean, that's not even a question right now.
Supermarket cleaner. Anyway, let's move on.
This looks actually great. This looks great.
It looks good for mobile. It's like this is very good.
This suitable for mobile.
Then we have Pratfall which uh I guess already grows two and a half
million revenue. Yes. And I think this is this is literally one of those uh
friends love games.
Friends love games. Exactly. And it's like a direct opposite of peak. If you remember, there was this friend slope game about you climbing a mountain
and you're just d Yeah. Okay.
This is the one where you're just diving lower and lower into the cave.
Ding deeper. Okay.
Yeah. So, it's it's that. But unfortunately, it still didn't win this quarter's friends game of the quarter. and you'll see next as we'll go which one will be the best one. I think it's a pretty solid attempt but yeah
I mean it's 2.5 mil like
Yeah, it's not bad. It's not bad.
That's pretty good. Come on
for the production quality and the whole thing of it.
Yeah, exactly.
It just tells you how big the front slot market is. If like this thing can make 2 and a half mil,
which is great.
Why you hating on this? This looks fun.
This look fun.
You would never play this, man. Come on.
You would never play this. You would never
man you consider hell divers to be friend slope. [laughter]
Nice.
Okay.
Fortune mill. This this really caught my eye. So this is a game already 2 million something revenue.
Did anyone say web revenue? Oh yeah. This episode is brought to you by Fastpring the no drama D2C partner. that's been scaling with mobile publishers for over 20 years. They're fast growing, profitable, and seriously reliable, which is more than you can say about most vendors in this space. Anyway, whether you're launching a new web store, replacing your current D setup, or adding a backup plan, Fast Spring is here for you. Visit fastpring.gg gg to set up your web store today. Fastpring.gg. Hello, Fastpring. Thank you very much,
guys, for sponsoring this episode.
And it's a game about you having to make one meal to escape through gachas. So, there's literally a button there if you see called gacha, pachinko, lotto, darts, sushi, or whatnot. You need to make one mill and in in the level and you literally just play catcha mechanics. That's it. And there's a skill tree and [laughter] stuff on it and you just scratch tickets or whatn not.
Where's the studio? Where's the studio from? I need to know like what's [laughter] it called? I need to look it up.
Is for sure.
It's not a studio. It's it's a guy. It's Lava Lava Flame 2 or whatnot. It's like usually if is like a name like this is like one guy.
It's like and he has idol games. So of course
so idle gacha game literally of you playing actually got gachas
or something for sure.
Yeah. So we'll see but looks interesting
and could definitely work on mobile for sure.
How does this look interesting?
What do you mean like idle mechanic on gachas? Like that's coin looters basically. Monopoly go is exactly this.
Yes, but it's dressed like a very different thing. And that dress [laughter]
I don't care about the dress. I care about mechanics.
Yeah, for sure.
You know, a skilled eye will see the potential.
Like let's do an experiment. Let's do an experiment, guys.
Right. Okay.
I'll show you this and you understand. If we go to actual stats of backpack hero, it looks actually quite horrible.
I know how it look how backpack hero looks.
No, no, no, no. See, it's like
I know. I know.
It doesn't look that good. 5k reviews, what not?
It's fine.
It's like atrocious compared to like some some of the games there. And you see how many different mobile games were
done on this. We reviewed one last month doing very very stable revenue. So again, if you see the mechanic, doesn't need to be a great game.
Yeah. No, of course.
Just see the mechanic and you go. Don't even want to talk about
that's there. Punk. This was the ah yeah, this was the builder game.
Survival craft.
So this
this is actually a game that's uh it's called survival, but it's actually not really survival. It's just like this cozy utopia that you build and you just like decorate and craft and like do stuff in it and it's all nice and cozy and that's it. I don't know why it's called even survival game
technologically advanced world of floating island. Yes.
There you go.
That's exactly part.
Yeah.
So this is just relax slop.
Yes. Relax [laughter] slop. Don't don't invent new categories like
Yeah.
But why I'm putting it here? Because we talk about this one game which is called Hartopia and this really really resembles it.
Yes. But Htopia makes [ __ ] ton of money.
I know. I know. I know.
So
this looks really fun if you're having a stressful day. Just
Yes.
I'm sure the music is super relaxing. You know, go do your garden on floating island with giant balloons and drones actually. That's great.
Why do the gardening the hard way?
Anyway, so this already made 3.5 million.
Jesus.
That's nice. Yes.
Why
do you think this will go on mobile? It's not too small screen.
Most probably though. Most likely it's it's a bit of a stretch. I already like
Harpia is also quite
the name
Everything is crab. Yes, Hartopia is just quite big production. That's what I wanted to say. So, there's this game called Everything is Crab
which has
I love it
trailer that's literally narrated by fake David and Bro. It's quite nice because it's about you trying this guy is called Darin by the way and you trying to not get Darwin in this ecosystem.
So you eat stuff and you grow and evolve and mutate and whatnot and you know evolution happens.
Yeah.
And then uh yeah you try
small small things. Yeah.
You try not to end up being a crap. That's also [laughter] one of the goals because your evolution will actually lead you to becoming a crab. But yeah, there's lots of mechanics, bosses. It actually looks to me a little bit like snake IO or what?
It's not totally snake IO, man.
Yeah. Yeah. So, looks like that. But again, it's a rog light. That's what
That's what
Yeah. But also, you can actually combat these big guys. So,
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's a mix of like Survivor IO, Snake IO, Evolution stuff. It's very nice. Like this. This could definitely work on mobile.
Yeah.
And it's already did 4.3 million.
Yes. So, this is pretty good. You already see some streamers playing it somewhere right now. But yeah. Yeah. This this was quite interesting. Now, we go for the big guys. Librarian. So, this is more advanced version of that supermarket [ __ ]
where what you actually do,
you have a giant arcane library. The trailer is perfect because there's literally the classic on playing in the meantime, the vaults, and you have a giant library, which again is a giant mess. And what you do, you need
to tidy it up.
I know that library. This library is in Portugal in Porto.
Oh, really?
Literally, I've literally been in this library. It's uh I'll find a picture of it. But
that's nice. Anyway, so what do you do? You tidy up this library.
No.
Oh, this needs Oh my god. [laughter] This will take like 17 lives to actually finish the job.
No, you actually have skills that helps you to do it faster.
You're like, what? You don't kill yourself in the in the meantime.
You see magics of
magic. Yeah.
Major magic. What was that?
Assemble based on the topmost book you are currently holding. Books that are in the same series will get into your hands. Disability and school immediately upon activation. [laughter] Of course, it's very creative.
Yes.
Come on. People like this tidying up your room effect. People like that.
It could catch up. Very nice. What do you mean? Who
who likes this?
People that play Supermarket Simulator or Euro Track Simulator [laughter]
or Crane Simulator pretty much.
Exactly.
Or I mean I can I can understand like who plays these type of things.
Yeah. So it could become a trend that we have games that are basically on this cleaning the mess thing.
And this is a high budget one. We see that like Yeah. And it's 15k positive, very positive reviews by the way already. And it already made 4.6 million. So yes, there are lots of people that are actually doing this.
Nice.
Even right now like uh
why it's going up
daily active users 25k see and it was before 80k 80k librarians. There you go.
80k libraries. All of them. All 80k libraries in the whole world. I can really imagine people working in the library coming home and they're playing this [ __ ]
I'm so sad for them. But I mean that's they I think they can find that is relax. I can imagine.
Then we have Rome's dead 5.3 million. This is actually adventure survival game where it's like a little bit of arcade idol I would say with the survivor IO elements and what you do you literally rebuild Rome with your friends. So it's I would say considered also friend slope
is it in the meantime
slop though.
Yeah.
What?
Why slop? This looks fun.
Okay. And uh yeah, it's I I guess like this kind of combo of like Stardelli, Survivor IO, Minecraft, whatnot think Roman style. So
Roman style
that that's what we have here. But it's a nice concept for sure and definitely would work on mobile.
Um I'm guessing mostly on single player
setup. Anyway,
M random question. Romans CPIs, what's it like?
Man, I have no idea. It's It's anyway it's pixel art so it won't be working in pixel art normally.
Yeah. Won't pixel art.
Another blast from the past. Vampire crawers
from the original ponle. So, we have another iteration of vampire survivors developer which this time brought us actually first person card battler something
which is happening like this and I'm guessing it will get copied one way or the other just because the name
the game is not doing
path of kings like this.
H yeah a little bit a little bit. So, this is one of the older ones that we have here. Released April 21st, and it's
already sold [snorts] 9.5 million revenue. 1.2 million units sold. So, it's not really doing that bad.
Yeah.
And we'll see what happens because again, the mechanics and everything seems a little bit excessive even by looking at it. But again, we seen stuff like uh what was the game? The wood one.
Bad of Kings. Pad of kings. Yeah, pad of kings. So, this could still work. It's just again matter of time. Next one. Lives.
If I understand correctly,
it's one of those, how do you call this? Relax slop.
Relax slop. Relax slop.
Don't make up new categories. Yeah, it's a thing already.
So, not the relax game, which is literally like
fake Sims. Yeah, it's rational Sims
where again you build stuff, you build the characters, give them kind of life around them and again do stuff with, you
know, you being the it's a little bit of a god game you can say.
I'll never forget the first time I played Sims when I was young and then I was remember playing actually the story mode and I was like getting a job to save up to buy like this paint picture painting in Sims and I'm like hang on what am I doing? I need to stop. [laughter] I need to go play Age of Empires 2.
My wife never goes through the editor. She spends like four hours there and then like time to go.
Yeah. Okay, I'm done.
Anyway, this already did 13 million. So,
pretty pristine relax.
This studio must be It's not a single person studio. This must be
Alex Masa and the team.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sounds to me like it's like Alex Masa.
Three people. Yeah.
So I don't know
Alex and his friends
it looks quite high high production like it's you know this looks quite okayish. So but I don't know these days you know
you have no yeah this is how many how many people working on it
second best game of the quarter
your friends. So what's happening here? Again, very unique friendlop idea. You get a loan from a lone shark, which is a little shark. [laughter] You get thrown into a casino where you need to pay off the debt or something. And yeah, again you have similarly like the game that we saw there. You have lots of machines and uh other whatever casino style games or whatn not that you
like mini games that you play.
Yeah. Playing with your friends in like this casino and you're failing miserably and horribly. And again, the thing is that uh it's 126 cop casino crawler
where you and your friends share one bank account and one massive depth. Buy sketchy items, make terrible decisions, and clide an ominous casino tower to hit your lone shark's daily quota in 5 minutes or face consequences. So yeah, this is pretty good. And this already did 18 mil.
[snorts]
Wow. This Why is this genre not more on mobile?
Because the audience lives on PC.
Yeah. I don't think
for these guys is literally like imagine like you have four friends.
Yeah.
And you do this every single month and you never play the same game.
Yeah. Yeah.
You just go in because like it it it loses its appeal after like a weekend basically. Yeah. because you know the mechanics is like quite cello and so on so forth. So you go here it's like a ticket to a cinema or whatever one coffee.
Yeah. So everybody buys this and plays
it on Saturdays and that's it. And next week they play a new one. That's it.
And it has these giant numbers like these guys which is again I'm guessing it will be some kind of giant number here. Yeah. See 300k people do this every single whatever weekend. the first May weekend. Yeah.
Yeah. So, and now we got to the winner which is again a friend slope game.
Yeah.
Make a chameleon which we already by the way covered on the channel separately. If you want to get more, go find it.
So, make a chameleon.
6 million.
60 mill in two [ __ ] months.
Yes.
Beat that. Done by two people. [laughter]
Yes. Yes. So, make a chameleon explo like
Mega Chameleon is one of those like twoman wonders. The game is so simple yet so perfect. Like I really really
enjoy it. It's a little bit different than your typical hideand seek because you have the chameleon part. So, how it works is you start the game and you get into two groups. One is hunters, one is the chameleons. Hunters just wait in the lobby while chameleons needs to go. And why, by the way, not showing it. The chameleons, of course, because I have it on our channel. Yes,
I played it. I even won a game there.
So, what's happening here that you end up in this, that's the main menu. You end up in this lobby. This is the lobby. Literally the production quality is like I think somewhere it was even said that it took two months to make this game for these guys. You see the production quality. It's like like random unit scene and like you throw [ __ ] in it.
Yeah, exactly. That's it. You don't need anything else.
Yeah.
Look at the smile. Like he's actually enjoying himself.
These are the two guys, Leoron and Hagierro. Whatever devs like this is basically
credits. So, a hunter applicant should stand here. So, you get there and then you kind of go in and uh I think this time I got selected by hunters. Yeah. So, I'm waiting with another guys, another hunter. And these five chameleons are in the meantime in the
map trying to hide. Yes, you need to find your spot and then you you don't need but of course it's better if you you know cover yourself with the chameleon stuff and try to blend in. Uh, and then you go in with a shotgun if the timer runs out and you start searching them and that's basically the game.
You basically have to shoot them.
Yeah, you shoot them. And in some modes you shoot them and then they join you. So a chameleon that loses will became the hunter. So then by the end of it like there's more more people searching for the last one. But again modes are
different. Sometimes not sometimes. Yes. Depends. Uh, but it's much more enticing because again, you don't just like look at the screen doing nothing.
How long do you have to paint yourself or like hide?
I think 120 seconds or like some some kind of a smaller timer. And then like the whole game as you see here, it's uh 5 minutes. So, it just ticks down and then you go and need to find I think I found someone here. Yeah, there we go.
That was a horrible hiding place. Yeah, of course. This guy most probably went AFK or something. I don't know. And then uh you go and that's it pretty much. The important part is that why this exploded so much because it utilizes a lot of UGC content. Steam workshop works here and people are making a lot of maps. Maps when they are played, they're like a meta game of this. You find the good spots, people kind of learn them, then they check them always and the map kind of gets, you know,
ruined. Yeah. Ruined. So a new map comes
in again, new tactics emerge and people need to find those hiding spots and so on so forth. So these are powering it always. So that's always nice. I think I I lost here because I literally found the guy and didn't thought it's him, but it was him. And thankfully my partner there in the corner shoot him. Yeah. See? Oh, sorry. No, we didn't find him. That's when the game tells you if you didn't find him. Like he was hiding there. I was literally looking at him. And it was just like, yeah, we lost there. Anyway, much
Hey.
And then I go into another game and actually show you how it looks. So now I'm trying to hide here. See, you see how many chameleons are there?
O, nice.
Yeah, a lot of them. So you go here. I actually ended up here on the roof and hided somewhere here. as you see like how low production this is. Like you're literally levitating in
the air. Nobody cares.
Doesn't matter, doesn't it?
Yeah, it doesn't matter. So, I just you go in, you pick like eyedropper and stuff and then you just like again just paint yourself to kind of blend in a little bit even though it's like it still looks shitty,
but still better than nothing.
Still better than nothing. Yeah, of course.
Yeah, exactly. So, you do that. I actually won a game as Chameleon, but it's not not here when I was just watching it. Oh, you [ __ ] clever clever bastard. You even even put yourself as a shade. That's amazing. Yeah, that's amazing.
That's really nice. You can really play with it. Like it's I understand the appeal. And then you just wait there and you hear steps and people going around you. That's it. And like this is the most fun where you like they're desperately trying to find you and you're just like you're just watching at them. Like the one when I won there, I was like in this picture or whatever lying on top of it and there's literally like three people looking at me couldn't find me and then they lost. So perfect like but here
this is super good for like
for streamers and stuff, right?
Yeah. Yeah, of course. It's very streamable, very viral. Here I actually get found. So see like just like teleported with the shotgun because somebody shoot me. So now I'm joining the team and actually finding the other guys. So you see how slowly it's kind of moving to the the other end. But again, we lost because like too many of those. Anyway, so that was the winner.
60 million.
Yes, 60 million. Let that sink in,
guys. Well done.
This is This is literally perfect.
It's probably to 100, don't you think?
And you see the DAU 1.7 mil.
It's go go goes down, but still it's quite quite good
to 60K a day. That's still okay.
Two months project. [sighs]
Yeah. Uh, I think it's I think like this is the most extraordinary one that we had on the This episode is brought to you by
Potencus. And if you're a mobile game publisher tired of leaving money on the table, listen up. Potencus is a premium ad network built by people who have actually been on both sides of this industry, game publishers, agencies, successful exits. So, they get it. Here's the thing. Potencus has direct deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Vodafone. It's not programmatic, it's direct. Those budgets land in your game at premium CPMs, no middleman tax. And they're handle everything with their in-house team in terms of the critics. Plus, they've partnered with Playable Maker, Ving Wing. So, they will take brands YouTube videos or static images and actually turned into playable ad or revert video. Proper interactive format built for gaming inventory. Brands getting a gaming native creative publishers are getting a higher CPMs. Everyone wins. Head to potencus.com to get started or check their creative portfolio in the link in the show notes.
Thank you very much Potencus for sponsoring this episode. So second game from the start.
From the start.
Yes. This
supermarket chaos.
No, no, no.
Tower.
Oaken Tower. Okay. I'm going to look at look at this a little bit closer. Every time we do this, every time we do this, I'm just like, maybe I should, you know, go with Steam, you know, them with that.
No, man. That's not how this works.
That's not how it works, man. Yeah. Unfortunately,
yet thing the problem is that, you know,
this was great.
No worries. It's a survivor bias. Keep keep that in mind. For each one mechameleon, there's like thousands of failed games that you don't see
because it was what? No, no, no, no, no. 20,000 games added on Steam last year or something like that. I think that's
only 20,000.
Oh yeah, let me let me double check.
20 25 Yeah, 20,282 to 21,3 I don't know why it's two numbers, but yeah, 20K plus basically.
Compare that to iOS and Play Store is like 100,000 to 250k a year. So yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. But like
here in I think you need to pay $100 or something listing fee. So it's not like you cannot just
you need to pay Apple.
Yeah. $100 per per year. How do you
also? Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
And Google you pay something as well I think.
Yeah. I don't know why.
Small fee.
It's smaller than Apple. Yes.
You still need to pay.
But here it's a much different discovery method. That's also what you need to keep in mind. You cannot run just conventional UA and brute force it.
I mean you can still run UA.
Yeah, but like for instance
it's different. Yeah, it's different
with me chameleon. It won't happen that there will be like three mechacameons from voodoo or say games or whatn not in a month and then like you get brute force over this. That's not going to happen.
True.
If the first game is making 60 million, the next one is making 15, you know, like and then the third one is Yeah. Yeah. But like it goes down quickly, right?
Yeah, that's true. But this is like you
know pixel flow dynamic won't happen here. There will be this one and that's it. Anyway, see you in two months I guess.
See you in two months. Yes. Thank you very much guys for listening. See you in two months. Another Byebye
steam ahead episode. Ciao.
Bye.
Bye
bye.
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The second quarter of the year reveals a distinct trend in the gaming industry where mid-tier, non-AAA titles on Steam serve as a primary incubator for innovative gameplay concepts. By analyzing high-performing releases with at least 2,000 reviews, it becomes clear that titles prioritizing core mechanics—such as sorting, inventory-based progression, and social-casino loops—consistently outperform more complex, high-fidelity projects. Notable successes like Pratfall, Librarian, and Content Warning demonstrate that revenue potential is increasingly tied to addictive, loop-based experiences that emphasize player engagement over traditional production values.
The transition of these concepts to the mobile market remains a complex challenge. While games like Taskbar Hero and Supermarket Chaos offer clear blueprints for mobile adaptation, the discovery mechanisms between the two platforms differ significantly. Steam rewards niche, high-concept titles that foster organic community growth and user-generated content, as evidenced by the viral success of Make a Chameleon. This title, which garnered 60 million plays in two months, highlights the power of simple, streamable mechanics paired with robust community tools like the Steam Workshop to maintain long-term retention.
Ultimately, while Steam provides a fertile testing ground for creative mechanics, developers must avoid the trap of survivor bias. The mobile market relies heavily on brute-force user acquisition strategies, whereas Steam success is often contingent upon organic discovery and community-driven momentum. With over 20,000 games released on Steam annually, only a small fraction achieve breakout status. Consequently, mobile developers looking to leverage these Steam hits must carefully evaluate whether a game’s core loop can survive the transition from a community-centric discovery model to the highly saturated and competitive mobile ecosystem.
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