Steam Next Fest: Which Games Were Hot & Why?

This analysis examines the performance and emerging trends of the October 2022 Steam Next Fest, alongside broader ecosystem updates for Meta Quest and the general gaming industry. By tracking concurrent user (CCU) data for hundreds of PC game demos, the findings reveal a significant "hockey-stick" popularity curve. While the top-performing title, Undecember, reached over 16,500 CCU, only seven games surpassed 1,000 CCU, and fewer than 50 exceeded 100 CCU. This data suggests that while Next Fest provides a massive platform for discovery, player interest is highly concentrated in a small percentage of titles.

Genre analysis of the top 30 games indicates that sandbox, roguelite, and survival themes continue to index well with Steam audiences. Specific microgenres such as action RPGs, colony sims, and card battlers also showed strong representation. Notably, the data suggests that high CCU during Next Fest serves as a reliable leading indicator for a game's eventual commercial success upon release. The methodology for this iteration of the festival was improved by Valve’s decision to decouple the Steam badge from demo play, eliminating bot-driven inflation and providing more accurate "real" player metrics.

The scope of the report extends to the Meta Quest ecosystem, highlighting a robust market for VR software. Milestones include Bonelab grossing $1 million in less than an hour and The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners surpassing $50 million in revenue on the Quest platform alone. Approximately one-third of titles on the curated Quest Store have generated revenue in the millions, though the market is increasingly dominated by "evergreen" hits. Additional industry observations cover the Microsoft-Activision acquisition hurdles in the UK, the growth of PlayStation 5 hardware shipments, and the increasing transparency of indie publishing financials.