steammaho.com
@steammaho.com
We read 85,000 Steam games the way designers do: mechanics instead of genres. Which mechanics carry a game, how they wire together, and what that means in money. Open catalog and research at steammaho.com
Every dot is a released game with 10+ reviews. The 90 region names were not written by anyone: each region is named by the most distinctive features its games share. The year filter shows genres appearing: battle royale after 2017, bullet heaven after 2022.
September 5, 2026 at 9:40 AM
Every dot is a released game with 10+ reviews. The 90 region names were not written by anyone: each region is named by the most distinctive features its games share. The year filter shows genres appearing: battle royale after 2017, bullet heaven after 2022.
Every dot is a released game with 10+ reviews. The 90 region names were not written by anyone: each region is named by the most distinctive features its games share. The year filter shows genres appearing: battle royale after 2017, bullet heaven after 2022.
#gamedev #gamedesign
#gamedev #gamedesign
September 1, 2026 at 12:45 PM
Every dot is a released game with 10+ reviews. The 90 region names were not written by anyone: each region is named by the most distinctive features its games share. The year filter shows genres appearing: battle royale after 2017, bullet heaven after 2022.
#gamedev #gamedesign
#gamedev #gamedesign
The result that holds after every caveat: remove the blockbusters. Games carrying a top-10 pair and earning under $10M still show a $1.7M median. The market's is $1.0M.
Full table and method: steammaho.com/news/the-mec...
Full table and method: steammaho.com/news/the-mec...
The mechanic combos only blockbusters ship
Confirmed wired pairs found in 15-60 games have medians up to 72M dollars, 74x the market. Half of all games earn under 1M, but Dodge+Parkour has 2 such attempts of 27 and Prone+Recoil zero of 18. The...
steammaho.com
August 31, 2026 at 3:23 PM
The result that holds after every caveat: remove the blockbusters. Games carrying a top-10 pair and earning under $10M still show a $1.7M median. The market's is $1.0M.
Full table and method: steammaho.com/news/the-mec...
Full table and method: steammaho.com/news/the-mec...
50 of the 60 mechanic slots in the top 30 pairs are combat or movement systems. Recoil, stagger, takedowns, equipment weight. These are the most expensive systems to build: animation, physics, months of tuning.
(Part of the rarity is visibility. Big games get analyzed deeper in our catalog.)
(Part of the rarity is visibility. Big games get analyzed deeper in our catalog.)
August 31, 2026 at 3:23 PM
50 of the 60 mechanic slots in the top 30 pairs are combat or movement systems. Recoil, stagger, takedowns, equipment weight. These are the most expensive systems to build: animation, physics, months of tuning.
(Part of the rarity is visibility. Big games get analyzed deeper in our catalog.)
(Part of the rarity is visibility. Big games get analyzed deeper in our catalog.)
Half of all games with 1,000+ reviews earn under $1M. So of 27 dodge+parkour games, about 13 should be below that line. There are 2.
Prone aiming + recoil control: zero small games out of 18.
When one of these pairs is in a game, that game is almost always big-budget.
Prone aiming + recoil control: zero small games out of 18.
When one of these pairs is in a game, that game is almost always big-budget.
August 31, 2026 at 3:23 PM
Half of all games with 1,000+ reviews earn under $1M. So of 27 dodge+parkour games, about 13 should be below that line. There are 2.
Prone aiming + recoil control: zero small games out of 18.
When one of these pairs is in a game, that game is almost always big-budget.
Prone aiming + recoil control: zero small games out of 18.
When one of these pairs is in a game, that game is almost always big-budget.
The pattern: mechanics that define a game's structure (open world, companions, stealth) earn more as the core. Flavor systems (cooking, trading, moral choices) earn more inside a bigger game. Full write-up + free dataset for all 108 mechanics: steammaho.com/news/most-me...
Most mechanics pay better as a side system than as the main event
Across 108 common mechanics, 55 earn more when carried as a side system than when the game is built around them; only 12 reverse. Size-matching splits the effect: fishing's premium is pure composition...
steammaho.com
August 24, 2026 at 3:42 PM
The pattern: mechanics that define a game's structure (open world, companions, stealth) earn more as the core. Flavor systems (cooking, trading, moral choices) earn more inside a bigger game. Full write-up + free dataset for all 108 mechanics: steammaho.com/news/most-me...
Most of that is a size effect: "vehicle combat on the side" means PUBG and Cyberpunk. So we matched games by size. Fishing's gap disappeared. Permadeath's survived: a game about permadeath is a niche; permadeath as an option lives in Risk of Rain 2 and Don't Starve Together.
August 24, 2026 at 3:42 PM
Most of that is a size effect: "vehicle combat on the side" means PUBG and Cyberpunk. So we matched games by size. Fishing's gap disappeared. Permadeath's survived: a game about permadeath is a niche; permadeath as an option lives in Risk of Rain 2 and Don't Starve Together.