The game market consultant Chris Zukowski recently pointed out that the PC platform Steam is in the “golden age” and that, in the type of hot game, it is easier for developers to get positive reactions from players. Zukovsky is a game market analyst specializing in the field of independent games, well known for his operational blog, “How To Market A Game”. In an interview this year at the Games Developer’s Congress, Zukovsky described the present as the “Steam Golden Age”. He began with an example of the wave of vampire survivors. The game began in December 2021 in Steam and was officially launched in October 2022. Since the first stages of the experience, a great deal of loyalty has been reaped globally, and even a type of independent game of “class survivors” has been created.
“The Vampire Survivors”
Zukovik described the player at the time as “drinking out of self-control” and as long as he was labeled as a survivor, the player was willing to try. Even if the game itself is less fun, there are players who are constantly looking for the same type of game. Zukovski indicated that in the current “Steam Golden Age”, similar phenomena were constantly taking place in other types of games. Players are less self-restraint and prefer to try different types of games. The “cooperative” multiplayer game, represented by R.E.P.O. and PEAK, has received attention as a popular type in recent years and has indeed been successful in scrambling similar styles. There are now more opportunities for developers to “take on” popular types of hitchhiking.
A multi-player climb-up game, Peak
However, Zukovski notes that this trend stems from the early “tolerance” of the player. For example, despite the emergence in 2025 of such popular works as Megabonk, Deep Rock Galaxy: Survivors, the impact of this type remains significant, but quality standards are increasing as the number of similar works increases.
On the contrary, in the newly-emerging game class, players are still at the “quantity” stage, so some rough spots in the game can be tolerated by the players. Zukovski said that that was why he liked the PC game. The PC platform has a relatively low threshold compared to a rigorous review of the mainframe platform, which makes it easier to create a successful environment with a popular type of presence.
It is worth mentioning that Zukovski stressed that the current situation is that the “gold age” is not “golding hot”. In other words, developers do not have to go to the “mines” to get opportunities. It is a movement where the threshold is lowered and where capacity is low. According to Steam, its holiday season in 2025 exceeded the same period in 2020 (when the epidemic affected the platform with a huge increase) and reached a record high. After entering 2026, Steam is also updating its records with online players. While the number of games is increasing competition, for developers there is no doubt that the sudden and successful breakout is taking hold.
Steam’s top simultaneous online player 42,686,616
If that were true, as Zukovsky had said, other types of survivor-like games could face similar evolution as the demand for quality increases as the number of works increases. In addition, it is not known whether the new popular type will continue to emerge and how long will the “Steam Golden Age” last?
