February may have been the shortest month of the year, but that doesn't mean a shortage of top releases on Steam.

This month's lists showcase the top titles released in February (measured by the revenue generated during the first two weeks after their launch) and the top five free to play releases (measured by unique player count). As always, we take a look at some of the trends in these charts. But as a special part of this post, we’ve also included a spotlight section with two of the teams featured this month: Flying Oaks Games (ScourgeBringer) & Ink Stains Games (Stoneshard).


The first thing we noticed this month is the high volume of games using Early Access. With nearly half of the games this month graduating to full release or making their debuts, Early Access continues to be a successful option for developers and players alike. When we launched Early Access back in 2013, we hoped that the program would provide developers with an optional path to work on their game alongside data and feedback from players. It’s great to see so many studios finding success through Early Access.


Meanwhile, we continue to see new dev teams scoring a spot at the top of the charts. This month an astounding 11 games are coming from teams releasing their first ever Steam product. To Comfy Company, DeGenerals, Echo Entertainment, The Elephant Crew, Mastfire Studios Pty Ltd, panstasz, Placeholder Gameworks, SouthPAW Games, Spiderling Studios, SukeraSomero, WOLCEN Studio, welcome and congrats on your success.


Obviously, finding success with a first release is not something that every team achieves. For many developers, a first release can be challenging and rewarding experience, but one that doesn't lead to a spot on a monthly top release list. This month we thought it would be great to celebrate some of the teams whose first releases didn't make a top 20 list, but have found their way on to this month’s charts with a subsequent release. We asked Flying Oak Games (ScourgeBringer) and Ink Stains Games (Stoneshard) about the biggest takeaways from their first launches, how those translated to success this time around, and what they'd recommend to other developers who didn't make a top 20 list with their first launch.

In 2016 Flying Oak Games released the twin-stick shooter, NeuroVoider, for both consoles and Steam. The team points out that not enough focus was put on the quality of that title’s PC features. So, when they set out to make this month's hit, ScourgeBringer, Flying Oak made it a goal to ensure that their PC features be fully developed.

As Thomas Altenburger from the Flying Oak team puts it, "Quality depended on properly responding to our PC players, so we put extra effort into including as many Steam features as possible: Extended settings (e.g., full control support and remapping), working toward a crash free release, and localizing the game in as many languages as possible."

The team also said they were much more aware of Steam tags this time around. Rather than waiting to see how players decided to tag the game, they put emphasis on researching and selecting appropriate Steam tags before release. By carefully researching similar games, they were able to target players who were more likely to be interested in ScourgeBringer.

"We noticed that Steam is targeting players with similar interests more efficiently than in 2016,” said Thomas. “Understand: Set your tags right! We're pleased to see that new players are already familiar with the genres."

Finally, Flying Oak emphasized the importance of their publisher, Dear Villagers, who were able to create a focused marketing campaign that targeted relevant markets by using content creators specifically tailored for them.

"It has been hard, but we're very proud of the result and more importantly,” said Thomas. “Steam players seem to acknowledge the effort!"


When designing their latest title, Stoneshard, Ink Stains Games set out to create a product that was much bigger in scope than their first game 12 is Better Than 6. According to the team, the big difference this time around came from placing a greater focus on expanding their engagement with the community. Speaking with the team about the ways they made this happen, there was an emphasis on paying more attention to a global audience.

"From the very beginning, we chose Steam as one of our main community platforms, giving it priority over our other social networks,” said Andrey Tsypaiev from Ink Stains. “Here, we regularly published devlogs about our progress in several languages - this approach allowed us to build several regional communities around our game."

If you follow Stoneshard on Steam, you've probably seen these devlogs in the game's News Hub. Each one gives unique insights into the development path, along with sneak previews and colorful gifs showcasing upcoming features. Something that isn't always obvious to players though, is the fact that the team creates several localized versions of these devlogs. Regardless of what language a player has Steam set to, Ink Stains is able to share Stoneshard development with their entire community.

Andrey's advice to other teams, "Start working with the community as soon as possible. This strategy allows you to create the backbone of a community you will be working with later."


Thank you and congratulations to both Ink Stains Games and Flying Oak Games for sharing their experiences in creating a Top Release of February 2020.

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If you've made it this far, here's the list of February's top releases ordered by release date (we've organized this list on a sale page too):


ScourgeBringer
Flying Oak Games & E-Studio (France & Finland)


Stoneshard
Ink Stains Games (Russia)


Azur Lane Crosswave
IDEA FACTORY, COMPILE HEART & FELISTELLA (Japan)


Being a DIK - Season 1
Dr PinkCake (Sweden)


DAEMON X MACHINA
Marvelous Inc. (Japan)


Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem
WOLCEN Studio (France)


Metro Exodus
4A Games (Ukraine & Malta)


Senren＊Banka
Yuzusoft (Japan)


Besiege
Spiderling Studios (UK)


Blackwake
Mastfire Studios Pty Ltd (Australia & US)


Skul: The Hero Slayer
SouthPAW Games (Republic of Korea)


Taur
Echo Entertainment (Sweden)


Death and Taxes
Placeholder Gameworks (Estonia)


Tank Mechanic Simulator
DeGenerals (Poland)


WORLD OF HORROR
panstasz (Poland)


Dungeon Defenders: Awakened
Chromatic Games (US)


Max Gentlemen Sexy Business!
The Men Who Wear Many Hats (US)


Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection
CAPCOM CO., LTD. (Japan)


ONE PUNCH MAN: A HERO NOBODY KNOWS
Spike Chunsoft Co. Ltd. (Japan)


OshiRabu: Waifus Over Husbandos
SukeraSomero (Japan)

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Dota Underlords
Valve (US)


RISK: Global Domination
SMG Studio (Australia & US)


I Wanna Maker
The Elephant Crew (US)


Moe Era
Comfy Company (Russia)


绝望监牢 / 絶望プリズン
Studio Wasabi (Japan)

--

If you're curious about previous months, here are more Top Release lists:

• The Top Releases of May
  
• The Top Releases of June
  
• The Top Releases of July
  
• The Top Releases of August
  
• The Top Releases of September
  
• The Top Releases of October
  
• The Top Releases of November
  
• The Top Releases of December
  
• The Top Releases of January

Cheers!
-The Steam Team

Today we released the Steam Interactive Recommender, a way for users to harness the power of machine learning to discover personalized, interactive recommendations, based on your patterns of play. Along with powerful tag-based filters, you can tailor your results on the fly, selecting your own balance of popular or niche, and recent or classic titles, to find just the right games you're in the mood to play.

Recommendations generated by the system will appear on your store homepage. The Explore and Customize button leads to the full Interactive Recommender, where you can adjust parameters and save settings. Any customizations you make will also be used on the homepage.

Originally Steam Labs Experiment 002: Interactive Recommender, this new feature is now available to all users in the Steam store.



You can also access the Interactive Recommender by visiting https://store.steampowered.com/recommender, or find it in the Your Store menu.



The Interactive Recommender uses a machine learning model that is trained based on the playtime histories of millions of Steam users. It's not directly affected by tags or reviews—it instead learns about the games on Steam by looking at what users actually play. The basic idea is that if there are other players with similar play habits to you, who also play a game that you haven't tried yet, then that game is likely to be one you'll enjoy too.

We're also starting to apply the underlying model in other parts of the Steam store, where we think it can help players see the most relevant content or make more informed choices. For example, when viewing the page for a particular game, you may sometimes see "Players like you love this game" shown as a reason why the game is relevant to you, alongside other factors.

The Interactive Recommender isn't a replacement for our existing content discovery systems, but rather an addition to the variety of ways Steam recommends games to players. Although it's a powerful tool, there are some things it can't do. For example, it can't recommend new releases that nobody has played yet, while the Discovery Queue is designed to do just that. That said, we are starting to use the technology underlying the Interactive Recommender to power other features on Steam such as Steam Labs Experiment 008: Play Next, which recommends games you've already purchased but for whatever reason have not yet played. The result is a Steam experience that is more effective at connecting customers to games they'll love across a variety of scenarios.

The Steam Interactive Recommender was first released as part of our Steam Labs initiative. Feedback from visitors to the Labs helps us evaluate and iterate on potential new Steam features like this one. While in development, your feedback led us to add tag filtering and saved settings for even more powerfully-guided recommendations. We also looked at quantitative data, measuring clickthrough rates, and conversion rates to wishlist and purchases of games from both the home page capsule, and the full Interactive Recommender page. The data compared favorably with other Steam features, not just in the few weeks after introduction, but consistently over the following months, giving us confidence that this tool is providing long term value in helping users find games they enjoy. It's also pleasing to note that games found this way covered a large portion of our catalog, not just the most popular hits, with well over 10,000 different games purchased as a result of visits to the Interactive Recommender page.

Thanks to everyone who helped us refine the Interactive Recommender for release. Check out other ongoing experiments at https://store.steampowered.com/labs.

Try the Interactive Recommender today!

We've just released new features designed to make Search more powerful and easier to use. With new filtering capabilities and quality of life improvements, Steam Search is now even better at helping you browse for new games, or narrow in on exactly what you're looking for.

Today's changes to Search were made as part of Steam Labs, an initiative where we try out upcoming changes and gather feedback on their usefulness.

By developing new features in Labs we're able to experiment more, without impacting everyone who uses Steam. This means we can try things which might not work out, and can receive user feedback much earlier in the development process. Not everyone uses Steam the same way, so the feedback we receive in Steam Labs helps us serve a wider audience.

Our Search experiment started as an exploration of new ranking algorithms, but based upon user feedback it expanded to include the many quality of life improvements in today's release. While large features often get the most attention, smaller changes are essential for a smoother user experience.

Steam Search does more than just looking up games; it's a powerful tool that drives many of our discoverability features, including Top Sellers and Specials pages. Today's features are available anywhere the Search tool is used across the store.



Search now supports setting a maximum price, and a filter to only see special offers. If you're looking for a game in your budget, or hoping to discover just the right thing during a sale, this control will help you find the games you want.



We've introduced new ways to leverage tags to find the games you'll love. Tags now show a preview of how many results will be returned, making it easier to see which are most relevant to your search. By popular demand, it's also possible to exclude tags from your search. If you're a fan of survival games, but not horror or zombies, you can now search to your exact taste.

Our 'sort by relevance' algorithm will also place heavier weight on tags you've requested, meaning you'll see more relevant results up front, making it easier to find compelling titles, independent of whether they're popular.



We've heard from you that it can be frustrating to browse through search results that include a lot of games you already know about. Our new filters allow you to hide games that are ignored, wishlisted, or already in your library. These controls can be enabled or disabled without reloading your search, and their settings are preserved between searches.



Search is all about finding games that are relevant to you. If you don't own a VR headset, then seeing VR-only titles may not interest you. It's now possible to exclude these titles from your search, while still seeing VR-supported titles you can play without a headset.



Rather than having to manually click through pages, we now automatically load more results when you scroll. Your search, and the position in it, will be remembered if you click on any result, and then return to the search page using your browser's back button.

For those who prefer the older paginated view, infinite scroll can be configured via your Store Preferences.


If you're using Search in a language other than English, then your language will be shown first in the language filter control, and that control will be moved to near the top of the search page.

We've received a lot of amazing feedback during Search's time in Steam Labs, so this isn't the end of our Search improvements. If you would like to help us design and refine new features, head over to our Steam Labs page and try out the experiments that catch your interest. We'd love to hear from you!

Try the updated Search now!

The first month of the new decade is in the books, and with that we'll be looking at the top 20 games released in January 2020. As a reminder, we measure monthly top releases by looking at revenue generated during the first two weeks after launch. We'll also be featuring the top 5 free-to-play releases, measured by the total number of unique players acquired during their two-week launch windows. Scroll down to view the lists or check out this handy sale page.

If you've followed our previous posts, you know that we like to highlight the developers who are creating these awesome products. Every month, it's remarkable to see how diverse the representation of developers is from around the world. In the past six months alone, top releases were developed in more than 30 different countries across six continents. This diversity ensures that no matter where players live, it's easy to find games with familiar language use, regional pop culture references, local themes & settings and all sorts of other variety that simply wouldn't exist if developers were all from one region. January's new releases brought a surprising amount of content from one region in particular. More than half of January's top releases were developed in Asia, with eight titles coming from Japanese development teams.

The prevalence of Asian products in January likely comes from a huge variety of factors: change in geographical spending, impact of the Lunar New Year holiday, differences in developer release schedules, and certainly a bit of coincidence. The most exciting part of this surge comes when looking at the products themselves. Anime themes and JRPG elements often perform well with players on Steam, and January included six products from classic anime franchises - Dragon Ball Z, Atelier (3), Utawarerumono and Super Robot Wars. Another exciting thing about these top titles was that almost half of them launched without English localization for either audio or text. Not too long ago, including English support at launch was a requirement for success on Steam. English-speakers are still a huge part of Steam's audience, but the success of January's top releases reinforces the fact that now, more than ever, Steam players come from all over the world and will support a huge variety of language options.

One trend that didn't change this month is that of new developers finding success when bringing their first product to Steam. We're excited to welcome 10 development teams on this month's list who are launching their very first product on Steam. Some of these teams have worked together for years, bringing games to other devices or platforms, while others are working together for the first time. Congratulations go out to AQUAPLUS, Fantastic Passion, Ghostpie Studio, 汉家松鼠 Han-Squirrel Studio, Pyro Studios, Scavengers Studio, Skookum Arts, Soccer Manager Ltd., Steel Sky Productions, Studio 8 & Yippee! Entertainment. 

Finally, it's not very often that we get the opportunity to take a look back at an entire decade and reflect on how much has changed. For those who are nostalgic, curious or even looking for a classic game to explore, we thought we'd look at the top games debuting in January 2010 (sorted by release date). The list for January 2010 is quite different from our normal format, as it contains just 11 games, which happens to be every single game that released on Steam that month. Of these 11 games, only three of them would have charted on today’s Top 20.

Wings of Prey
Zero Gear
Gothic II: Gold Edition
Greed: Black Border
Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy
Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000
Dark Void
Bob Came in Pieces
Hotel Giant 2
Mass Effect 2
Toki Tori


Here is the list of January's top releases ordered by release date (we've organized this list on a sale page too):


部落与弯刀 / Sands of Salzaar
汉家松鼠 Han-Squirrel Studio (China)


港詭實錄 / Paranormal HK
Ghostpie Studio (China)


SUPER ROBOT WARS X
B.B.STUDIO CO.,LTD. (Japan)


GemCraft - Frostborn Wrath
Game in a Bottle (Hungary)


Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of Dusk DX
KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD. (Japan)


Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky DX
KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD. (Japan)


Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea DX
KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD. (Japan)


some some convenience store 썸썸 편의점
TALESSHOP Co., Ltd. (Republic of Korea)


DRAGON BALL Z: KAKAROT
CyberConnect2 Co. Ltd. (Japan)


ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS XIV
KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD. (Japan)


DEEEER Simulator: Your Average Everyday Deer Game
NASPAPA GAMES (Japan)


Temtem
Crema (Spain)


Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception
AQUAPLUS (Japan)


The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
Skydance Interactive (US)


Commandos 2 - HD Remaster
Yippee! Entertainment (UK) Pyro Studios (Spain)


Warhammer Underworlds: Online
Steel Sky Productions (Australia)


Coffee Talk
Toge Productions (Indonesia)


The Pedestrian
Skookum Arts (US)


Astellia
Studio 8 (Republic of Korea)


Not For Broadcast
NotGames (UK)

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Darwin Project
Scavengers Studio (Canada)


Coloring Game 2
L. Stotch (Russia)


Soviet Jump Game
Fantastic Passion (US)


Grim Clicker
EvilCharm Games (Russia)


Soccer Manager 2020
Soccer Manager Ltd. (UK)

--

If you're curious about previous months, here are more Top Release lists:

• The Top Releases of May
  
• The Top Releases of June
  
• The Top Releases of July
  
• The Top Releases of August
  
• The Top Releases of September
  
• The Top Releases of October
  
• The Top Releases of November
  
• The Top Releases of December

Cheers!
-The Steam Team

Shop in The Steam Lunar New Year Sale, where you’ll discover popular featured titles plus recommendations tailored just for you. Save on thousands of titles, now through January 27th at 10 am Pacific.

In celebration of the New Year, follow the origin story of the Zodiac as you open a new gift from the Emperor each day of the sale. Daily red envelopes feature Year of the Rat Tokens, good toward seasonal items available exclusively in The Lunar New Year Night Market. Plus, earn more tokens when you shop in the Lunar New Year sale!

Then, explore The Night Market, teeming with all-new seasonal goods such as animated Profile Backgrounds, Mini-Profile Backgrounds, Chat Room Effects, Chat Stickers, and more! Plus, save during the Lunar New Year Sale when you purchase the Lunar New Year Coupon, good for use throughout the sale.


Celebrate now at https://store.steampowered.com/sale/lunarnewyear2020 !

This month we'll be looking at the final top release list of the 2010s. These are the top products released in December 2019, as measured by revenue generated during the first two weeks after their launch. We also included the top 5 most popular free-to-play releases, measured by total unique player count for the two weeks following release.

With each month's top release list, we enjoy highlighting metadata about developers. For example, this month we have products coming from developers in 13 different countries (check below for specific countries). Beyond the fun that comes with checking the map for our favorite games, this helps illustrate the diversity of content makers who are bringing products to Steam. These developers have their own regional insights and experiences that allow them to incorporate unique themes, cultural elements and gaming mechanics to give an amazing amount of choice to Steam players.

Another point worth mentioning is the number of teams bringing a product to Steam for the first time. This month stuck out to us again, with almost half of the products coming from development teams who haven't yet been on Steam. We want to welcome these teams that are new to Steam: 10 Chambers Collective, A44, Elastic Games, Kozhakov, INFERNA LIMITED, Beawesome Games, Simogo, Bankroll Studios, Wiple Games, and HR Innoways

The studios represented each month tell a worthwhile story, but what about the games themselves - elements like game mechanics, themes, visual styles and genres. With these factors often represented in the form of user tags, we can actually look at the top three tags applied to the games on this month's list to get an idea of what elements they share, along with elements that stand alone.

The first thing we noticed this month is that only a handful of tags are applied to many games on the list: Action (9 games), Adventure (9), RPG (7), Indie (6) and Casual (6). The high frequency of these tags makes sense, as they represent broad groupings that are fairly generic and appear the most often on Steam. These tags provide useful high level groupings, but they aren't terribly good at illustrating specifics. When we look at the rest of the top three tags applied to each game, the frequency is drastically reduced, with 23 unique tags only appearing on a single game. Examples include: Great Soundtrack, Dragons, Co-op, Rhythm, Souls-like, Physics, Detective, Vampire and more. Unlike the highest-frequency tags, these are more likely to give specific insights about what makes each game unique. With millions of players on Steam coming from every imaginable region and background, the volume of unique tags echoes the huge variety of preferences that exist throughout the community. These tags also validate the creativity and perception of developers, who are able to find success each month by combining familiar shared themes with unique one-off elements.

If you enjoy the story that tags reveal and want to explore them in even greater detail, we recommend a visit to our Steam Labs. Experiments 004 & 005 both leverage tags to help narrow down the catalog in creative new ways. If you haven't tried yet, give it a shot and let us know what you think!

Here is the list of December's top releases ordered by release date (we've organized this list on a sale page too):


Halo: The Master Chief Collection
343 Industries, Splash Damage, Ruffian Games and Bungie (US)


Nancy Drew: Midnight in Salem
HeR Interactive, Inc. (US)


Day of Dragons
Beawesome Games (US)


Darksiders Genesis
Airship Syndicate (US)


Red Dead Redemption 2
Rockstar Games (US)


Endless World Idle RPG
Radiance Games (China)


Nostos
NetEase Games (China)


Ashen
A44 (New Zealand)


GTFO
10 Chambers Collective (Sweden)


BONEWORKS
Stress Level Zero (US)


DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS™ 2
Square Enix, KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD. (Japan)


Hades
Supergiant Games (US)


Hurtworld
Bankroll Studios (Australia)


Last Year
Elastic Games (Canada)


Transport Fever 2
Urban Games (Switzerland)


Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York
Draw Distance (Poland)


Sayonara Wild Hearts
Simogo (Sweden)


Winter Resort Simulator
HR Innoways (Austria)


DJMAX RESPECT V
NEOWIZ (Republic of Korea)


VR Paradise
Totem Entertainment (France)

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Ylands
Bohemia Interactive (Czech Republic)


Paunch
Kozhakov (Russia)


Ironsight
Wiple Games (Republic of Korea)


Endless World Idle RPG
Radiance Games (China)


Inferna
INFERNA LIMITED (Switzerland)

--

If you're curious about previous months, here are more Top Release lists:

• The Top Releases of May
  
• The Top Releases of June
  
• The Top Releases of July
  
• The Top Releases of August
  
• The Top Releases of September
  
• The Top Releases of October
  
• The Top Releases of November

Cheers!
-The Steam Team

We are excited to announce The 2019 Steam Awards Winners! These are the games and developers you, the Steam Community, voted as your favorites of 2019.

With eight categories there were a lot of tough decisions to be made; which is why we let you, our awesome community, do it! Not only are you a trustworthy, passionate bunch with excellent taste, but also, we can’t trust ourselves to pick a favorite. We truly love them all!

With this year's awards, we've asked you to focus your sights on titles released in the last twelve months. We're pleased to present the best of 2019's New Releases, plus your selection for the Labor of Love Award: the best game updated this year.

So without further ado, 🥁🥁🥁: Here are your winners of The 2019 Steam Awards! Congratulations to all!

Hello to my favorite Steamville residents! Yes, even you, my little snowman thieves. It’s Mayor Carol, here to remind you that the 13th annual Steam Winter Sale will be coming to a close at 10am Pacific on January 2nd.

And unlike what happened at the end of our Town Council’s karaoke performance of Jingle Bell Rock, the people of Steamville are enthusiastically chanting “Encore, Encore!” for the Winter Sale. So featured for these final two days of the sale, check out our Top Sellers from the event.

Now’s also a great time to check your Festivity Token balance. Hoarding will get you nowhere, my dears! You must spend them in our Holiday Market before they expire at the end of the sale!

Speaking of hoarding: In case anyone was so wrapped up in the Market they missed it, we announced earlier that Animated Stickers and Consumable Chat Effects no longer expire, so save away and use them whenever you like!

Cheers to you all, and thank you for joining me in yet another festive celebration in Steamville!

Happy New Year,
Mayor Carol

P.S. While I appreciate the return of the snowman to the grounds of Town Hall, the carrot was in a rather… questionable place. Steamville is always home to a good time, but please, let's keep it family-friendly.

Today is the last day to cast your vote in The 2019 Steam Awards! Be sure to cast your votes by December 31st, 9am Pacific, then check back at 10am Pacific for the winners' reveal!

Since the holidays can be stressful, with your family driving you crazy to love them even more, think of this as one final way to show your loved ones some appreciation! Although in this case, by “loved ones,” we mean the top new or updated Steam games you loved the most in 2019.

Vote now in all eight categories! Then sit back, relax, and await the big reveal of the winners of The 2019 Steam Awards tomorrow at 10am Pacific. Then, go take that long winter’s nap you’ve clearly earned, and we’ll see you for more Steam fun in 2020!

From now ‘til January 2nd @ 10am PST, snap up great deals on hundreds of popular VR titles.