[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 can see just via newsletter/podcast views that a bunch of you are back in action - it’s September, it’s post-Gamescom, you’re proactive & excitable individuals. So, uh, welcome, and try not to jump around too much as we continue gestures all this….
Before we start, for those who love Keita Takahashi’s inspired roll-’em-up Katamari Damacy might be interested to know that somebody made a web-based ‘object library’ for the original game - and sequel We Love Katamari. Viewing the primitive/adorable 3D models certainly gave us… a frisson of nostalgia for forbidden object accumulation?
[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.]
Game discovery news: State of Play = more PS-y…
Let’s get going here - and we’ll start with a look at the latest game platform & discovery news du jour:
PlayStation’s latest State Of Play streaming showcase (above) had a reveal or two, and lots of third-party multiplatform games. But it was mainly interesting re: showing first-party titles/DLC (Marvel’s Wolverine, Gran Turismo 7, Until Dawn 2, Saros, Ghost of Yotei) that we suspect won’t be on PC or Steam soon.
Surprise news of the week was veteran data-crunching site SteamDB getting acquired by NexusMods - or more precisely a company called Chosen, which has big $ backing to roll up a bunch of game modding sites. Plan is to keep SteamDB running & handy while using its data to build a better mod manager. (Sure?)
Xbox things: the Xbox Cloud Gaming service is restricting hours per month to Game Pass subscribers (Ultimate: 15 hours; Premium: 10 hours; Essential: 5 hours - tho only 4% of subscribers currently exceed these limits!) You can also buy more cloud hours - and there will be a non-GP ‘a la carte’ option for cloud; new GP titles include RuneScape: Dragonwilds, Speedrunners 2 & more…
ICO’s Thomas Bidaux keeps a better track on weekly release counts on Steam than we do, spotting that we’re now above 700 games ‘released’ weekly. He also noted that 95 (13.1%) of those games* (*inc 1.0 releases) got >50 player reviews and 62 (8.6%) got >100 player reviews.
There’s a pair of Nintendo Direct streaming showcases due next week (on the 8th and 9th), with “a special The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct” on the 8th - presumably covering more on the Ocarina Of Time remake - and a ‘regular’ Direct with first/third party games on the 9th. Please expect them!
We covered the pre-release discovery wins for How Many Dudes? back in January, and ICYMI, the Butterscotch Shenanigans crew has a giant, helpful recap for the roguelike dudebuilder: “[We] sold 173,000 units in its first week on Steam… our best-performing game ever… despite taking the least amount of time to make.”
Roblox things: a new report from GameAnalytics has some neat insights - 44% of players use both mobile & PC, the median player opens the app 3 times a day; the first ‘less Roblox-y looking’ games from Roblox’s incubators are getting previewed; Roblox is now under the terms of the EU’s Digital Services Act (extra supervision.)
Steam documentation change of the week: if you make a third-party sales/event page, Valve is clarifying that you might not get ‘basic’ featuring on the Special Events page (not the front page!) if “it’s a massive event… an event with no clear theme… or very similar to other events which have run this year.” (But they’ll tell you.)
We just talked about why we think co-op only (non-friendslop) games are an under-served market, and right on cue, 2 player RC car co-op adventure Wheelmates launched with 194k demo downloads & 370k net wishlists, and is hovering at a creditable ~1,000 CCU on Steam right now.
Some smart points in this interview with Arrowhead (Helldivers 2) CEO Shams Jorjani. #1: “The only thing that really, really mitigates risk… is brand and recognisability.” #2: for new games, even as a bigger studio, they’ll be “putting it in the hands of players right away - as soon as possible.”
Microlinks: Sony & Microsoft say they’re not obligated to pass U.S. tariff refunds to consumers, echoing Nintendo; the latest Steam client update has officially added support for HDR streaming on Steam Deck OLED; the Apple App Store team showed up to Gamescom Dev to talk best practices for premium apps,
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Aug 2026’s top new PC/console games, revealed..
Where would we be w/out GameDiscoverCo’s top new Steam (& console) games of the month and more, powered by our Pro data? Here’s July, June, May, April, March, Feb and Jan’s, if you missed ‘em. And July’s top new Steam games by unit look like this:
The 2x million sellers? Less expensive friendslop-adjacents: the absolute smash, albeit at USD $5-$7, was the Landfall-backed ‘fish & then shoot ‘em’ How To Fish, which we have at >6.3m units (!) And the $15-$20 linear co-op hit Big Walk, which we talked about, we’ve got at >1.6m on Steam alone in August. (Not bad.)
Iron Nest & ReStory were the two ‘trad indie’ standouts in August: you’ll know ‘heavy turret sim’ Iron Nest - 650k units at $15-$20, since we covered it in-depth, but ICYMI, ReStory - almost 500k units at USD $18-$20 - is a really nicely done ‘chill electronics repair’ sim with retro consoles & cellphones/iPods to fix up.
The rest of the Top 10 is an unsurprising mix of AA and indie: we’ll get to the bigger games, inc. Star Wars Zero Company, in the ‘top revenue’ chart. But the other indie titles include Rusty Lake’s $6-$8 puzzle adventure Servant Of The Lake (>250k units) and 2D physics factory automator Sandustry ($10-$15, >200k.)
One interesting title we’ve barely talked about - Grain Rot ($9-10), a horror co-op extraction ‘unbuilder’ with cute robots. It’s friendslop-adjacent with permanent progression baked in (maybe the ‘next step’?) looks snappy, and sold >200k at ~$9 USD just in its first three weeks…
Checking the Top 10 new Steam releases by $ for August (not inc. off-Steam key sales), you’ll see How To Fish ($26m, #2) and Big Walk ($21m, #3) in the mix, but late-month release XCOM-like Star Wars Zero Company ($50-$60) hit #1 at >$28m and ~650k units. And Mortal Shell II ($50-$60, >430k units, $17m) also did excellently.
Also: the AA titles have differing cross-platform outcomes. Star Wars Zero Company, being turn-based strategy, is doing ‘OK’ on console - <100k each on PS & Xbox, LTD. But Mortal Shell II, as a Souls-like, is doing better on PlayStation (almost 250k, with decent China & Middle East interest) and less well on Xbox, for regional reasons.
Checking on all-game Steam revenue for August, Valve’s Counter-Strike 2 and DOTA 2 are actually #1 ($131m) and #3 ($61m) this month, with a big Apex Legends season launch boosting the F2P hero shooter to #2, with $89m grossed on Steam alone.
Otherwise, it’s a little quiet, with debuts like Zero Company, How To Fish, Big Walk, and Mortal Shell II all ranking in the Top 10. The exceptions: pre-orders for Phantom Blade Zero ($22.5m, on nearly 400k units) are boding well for its Oct. Steam/PS5 release, and similarly for Oct’s Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 (325k pre-orders & $18m so far.)
We’ve also included the all-game #11 to #30 on Steam (above) again, since we find it fascinating. Notable in here: AA shooter Wardogs picking up more serious pre-order momentum (now at >500k on Steam alone), and a buncha F2P/catalog games doing well…
Finishing off by looking at PlayStation and Xbox’s top new games in August, it’s American football stalwart Madden NFL 27 nearing 2m across both consoles (with a ~40% share via the U.S.-centric Xbox player base.) The other standout is Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls, which sold >500k units on PS5 (plus another 200k on Steam, which suffered from PC tech issues at launch…)
There were also some good results for zombie survival-er No More Room In Hell 2 (which managed >400k across PS/Xbox, its launch timed to 1.0 on the Steam version), and the AA Hell Let Loose Vietnam, which rode its shooter chops to >800k across Steam, Xbox and PlayStation, with our PS and Xbox estimates at around 200k each.
Checking Switch Western eShop new releases for August, Big Walk was the top new performer with >100k copies sold. At sub-100k but scaling, we have LoTR: War in the North - Legacy Edition, Elden Ring Tarnished Edition (that one’s scaling quick!), with Madden NFL 27 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered also selling ‘alright’. (Switch 2 third-party is still fairly non-dynamic, tho...)
Last off, since GameDiscoverCo Pro analyzes Twitch monthly for the most popular games, here’s the top 20 games overall for the month. Ever wondered how some of these evergreen titles like LoL, Valorant, Minecraft stay evergreen? Look here!
And there’s a couple of ‘not always seen in the Top 20’ notables like Project Zomboid still staying high in the charts thanks to its Build42 Stable releasing in late July. We find the Top 20 ‘new release in August’ charts more interesting, though:
You’ve got Big Walk topping the charts, Tokon doing well (and How To Fish at #4), with sports games - inc. Madden & NBA 2K27, in Advance Access at the end of August - in the mix. And even games which just did ‘OK’ in sales thus far - such as Beast Of Reincarnation & Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy - feature in the Top 10.
Another notable trend is lo-fi horror games such as The Skin Stapler (ew!) and Gas Station Case doing well with Twitch viewers, although that interest doesn’t always convert to sales. (Both of these games topped out at around 200 concurrents on Steam.)
Steam this week: Onimusha, Dawnwalker nail it…
