Dozens of demos hit Steam every day. About 1 in 31 will matter. Our day-one list beats those odds by 2.6×, called before the first review.
We track every demo from the hour it drops, 9,016 so far, and publish what the data keeps teaching: the day’s picks, and the findings behind them.
Playing?
The day’s picks, called before the crowd shows up, plus the findings behind them.
Shipped a demo?
Your game is already in our data. See what the field says about what actually works.
Scouting?
By the time a demo shows up on a chart, the deal is usually done. We measure every demo on Steam from the day it drops, so you see the ones climbing while they are still unsigned.
Findings · research from the field
new findings land in the newsletter first
Finding № 1
Three in ten demos show no sign of a player, and the cliff sits near 100 followers, not 1,000.
811 demos scored on a matched basis, from ~2,100 polled
Latest field report · issue № 114 · Tuesday, 13 October 2026
Pandora's Lantern
runner · Action · Adventure · Action-Adventure
Parcel Cannon
runner · Casual · Arcade · 3D
First free report
The October Next Fest, measured wall to wall.
Every demo in the fest, tracked hourly: who surged, who stalled, and what separated them. One standalone report.
How we measure
Live player counts, review velocity, follower curves, all polled from day zero and scored the same way for every game.
Tomorrow’s field report is already brewing.
Your game might be in it.