The Game Census
You Have to Win the Game cover art

You Have to Win the Game

Minor Key Games · 2014-05-06

Steam

ActionIndie

Modes: Single player · Perspectives: Side view

Releases: May 06, 2012 (PC (Microsoft Windows)), May 06, 2012 (Linux), May 06, 2012 (Mac)

You Have to Win the Game is a free exploration platformer with a retro 1980s PC aesthetic.

You Have to Win the Game is an Action, Indie game released in 2014, priced at free-to-play, with an estimated 200,000 .. 500,000 owners and a Very Positive review sentiment (93% of 5731 reviews).

1
playing now
93%
positive of 5.7k reviews
Very Positive
steam's rating (official)
200,000–500,000
owners (SteamSpy est.)
70/100
IGDB user rating (17 ratings)
2h
time to beat (IGDB)
pending
deck/linux tier (ProtonDB)
Verified
Steam Deck (Valve)
SteamOS: Playable
Free
steam price (US)

1 players in-game as of 2026-10-14 12:00 UTC (census sample)

Health check

Quietly active
  • · 1 players in-game at the last census sample.
  • · 64 reviews in the last 8 weeks (~8/week).
  • · Review velocity down 11% vs the prior 8 weeks.
  • · Top 6% of 27,701 Action games in the census by review count.

Review momentum

PositiveNegative
383820182026Week of 2018-01-01: 38 positiveWeek of 2018-01-01: 7 negativeWeek of 2018-02-01: 22 positiveWeek of 2018-02-01: 4 negativeWeek of 2018-03-01: 25 positiveWeek of 2018-03-01: 4 negativeWeek of 2018-04-01: 33 positiveWeek of 2018-04-01: 4 negativeWeek of 2018-05-01: 25 positiveWeek of 2018-05-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2018-06-01: 27 positiveWeek of 2018-07-01: 25 positiveWeek of 2018-07-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2018-08-01: 24 positiveWeek of 2018-08-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2018-09-01: 12 positiveWeek of 2018-09-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2018-10-01: 14 positiveWeek of 2018-11-01: 18 positiveWeek of 2018-11-01: 4 negativeWeek of 2018-12-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2019-01-01: 20 positiveWeek of 2019-01-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2019-02-01: 11 positiveWeek of 2019-03-01: 12 positiveWeek of 2019-03-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2019-04-01: 12 positiveWeek of 2019-04-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2019-05-01: 23 positiveWeek of 2019-05-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2019-06-01: 21 positiveWeek of 2019-06-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2019-07-01: 31 positiveWeek of 2019-07-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2019-08-01: 9 positiveWeek of 2019-08-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2019-09-01: 9 positiveWeek of 2019-09-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2019-10-01: 9 positiveWeek of 2019-11-01: 24 positiveWeek of 2019-11-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2019-12-01: 27 positiveWeek of 2019-12-01: 4 negativeWeek of 2020-01-01: 26 positiveWeek of 2020-01-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2020-02-01: 12 positiveWeek of 2020-02-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2020-03-01: 29 positiveWeek of 2020-03-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2020-04-01: 27 positiveWeek of 2020-04-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2020-05-01: 26 positiveWeek of 2020-05-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2020-06-01: 17 positiveWeek of 2020-06-01: 7 negativeWeek of 2020-07-01: 25 positiveWeek of 2020-07-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2020-08-01: 11 positiveWeek of 2020-09-01: 14 positiveWeek of 2020-09-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2020-10-01: 15 positiveWeek of 2020-10-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2020-11-01: 17 positiveWeek of 2020-12-01: 14 positiveWeek of 2020-12-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2021-01-01: 14 positiveWeek of 2021-01-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2021-02-01: 12 positiveWeek of 2021-02-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2021-03-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2021-04-01: 18 positiveWeek of 2021-04-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2021-05-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2021-06-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2021-06-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2021-07-01: 17 positiveWeek of 2021-07-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2021-08-01: 16 positiveWeek of 2021-08-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2021-09-01: 11 positiveWeek of 2021-09-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2021-10-01: 9 positiveWeek of 2021-10-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2021-11-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2021-11-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2021-12-01: 16 positiveWeek of 2021-12-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2022-01-01: 16 positiveWeek of 2022-01-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2022-02-01: 15 positiveWeek of 2022-03-01: 9 positiveWeek of 2022-03-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2022-04-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2022-04-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2022-05-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2022-05-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2022-06-01: 12 positiveWeek of 2022-06-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2022-07-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2022-07-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2022-08-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2022-08-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2022-09-01: 17 positiveWeek of 2022-10-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2022-10-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2022-11-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2022-11-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2022-12-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2022-12-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2023-01-01: 12 positiveWeek of 2023-02-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2023-02-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2023-03-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2023-04-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2023-04-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2023-05-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2023-06-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2023-07-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2023-08-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2023-08-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2023-09-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2023-09-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2023-10-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2023-10-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2023-11-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2023-11-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2023-12-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2023-12-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2024-01-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2024-01-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2024-02-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2024-02-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2024-03-01: 11 positiveWeek of 2024-03-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2024-04-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2024-04-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2024-05-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2024-06-01: 9 positiveWeek of 2024-07-01: 9 positiveWeek of 2024-07-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2024-08-01: 9 positiveWeek of 2024-08-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2024-09-01: 11 positiveWeek of 2024-09-01: 4 negativeWeek of 2024-10-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2024-10-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2024-11-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2024-12-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2025-01-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2025-01-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2025-02-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2025-02-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-03-01: 9 positiveWeek of 2025-04-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2025-04-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2025-05-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2025-05-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-06-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2025-06-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-07-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2025-08-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2025-09-01: 13 positiveWeek of 2025-09-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2025-10-01: 12 positiveWeek of 2025-10-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-11-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2025-11-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-12-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2025-12-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2026-01-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2026-01-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2026-02-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2026-02-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2026-03-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2026-04-01: 9 positiveWeek of 2026-04-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2026-05-01: 11 positiveWeek of 2026-06-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2026-06-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2026-07-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2026-08-01: 6 positive
Weekly review counts (Steam review histogram). Positive above the line, negative below.

Players online

602026-09-15 13:00 — 5 players2026-09-16 22:00 — 2 players2026-09-18 05:00 — 1 players2026-09-19 13:00 — 1 players2026-09-20 20:00 — 4 players2026-09-22 04:00 — 2 players2026-09-23 11:00 — 3 players2026-09-24 19:00 — 5 players2026-09-26 02:00 — 4 players2026-09-27 10:00 — 5 players2026-09-28 17:00 — 2 players2026-09-30 01:00 — 2 players2026-10-01 08:00 — 1 players2026-10-02 16:00 — 0 players2026-10-04 00:00 — 1 players2026-10-05 08:00 — 3 players2026-10-06 15:00 — 2 players2026-10-07 23:00 — 6 players2026-10-09 06:00 — 1 players2026-10-10 14:00 — 3 players2026-10-11 21:00 — 1 players2026-10-13 05:00 — 1 players2026-10-14 12:00 — 1 players
Concurrent players, hourly average, last 30 days (census samples).

Completion

15
achievements tracked
94.4%
earned "First of Many"
11.3%
median achievement earned by

Global achievement rates from Steam.

Details

WindowsmacOSLinuxFull controller supportSingle-playerSteam AchievementsFull controller supportSteam CloudStatsFamily Sharing

1 supported languages: English

Console footprint

PlatformPlayers trackedCompletionTrophies/achievements
Steam (Steam)19,7333%15

Players tracked by Exophase (achievement/trophy trackers) — a sample of the player base, not total sales.

Where its players are

Share of Steam reviews by language (top languages measured) — a proxy for where the player base lives.

Player tags

2DIndieRetroActionArcadeAdventureDifficultOld SchoolPlatformerExploration

Census log

Computed from census-recorded observations only — dates are observation dates.

Players also track

Hyper Light DrifterOri and the Blind ForestZigguratChasmChildren of MortaMomodora: Reverie Under The MoonlightPikunikuSemblance

Similarity via IGDB.

Official site ↗