# The Game Census — full reference > The vital signs of every video game: live player counts, review momentum, cross-store prices, ownership estimates and evidence-backed health verdicts, recorded continuously across the entire Steam catalog. Site: https://thegamecensus.com Catalog: 197,113 games enumerated · 196,298 fully profiled · 76,530 with ownership estimates Recorded observations: 2,818,403 player-count samples · 3,025,138 weekly review data points · 6,789,168 price snapshots ## Why this dataset exists Most gaming metrics are only published as CURRENT values. Steam tells you how many people are playing a game right now — never how many were playing last month. Once a day passes, that history exists nowhere unless someone was recording it. The Game Census records it, continuously, so questions like "was this game declining before the controversial update?" or "did the free weekend actually retain players?" remain answerable. ## What a game page contains (https://thegamecensus.com/game/) - Identity: name, developer, publisher, release date, genres, description (from Steam metadata) - Available on: store presence chips (Steam always; GOG, Microsoft Store, Epic Games Store, Amazon, PlayStation Store, Xbox where IGDB's cross-store mapping found one), linked where the stored id maps to a reliable public URL - Trailer: official trailer thumbnail (YouTube search match) linking out to the video, with the matched title and an approximate YouTube result count for the search - Vitals row: players in-game now (census sample), review percentage and total, Steam rating text, SteamSpy ownership bracket, latest Twitch viewers (exact game-id match where mapped, else name-matched top-50), US price, IGDB user rating and rating count, IGDB hype votes (unreleased games) - Health verdict: a computed tier (Thriving / Healthy / Quietly active / Cooling / Dormant / Insufficient data) with every evidence line citing the underlying numbers - Sales estimate: a labeled range (see method below), only shown at >=50 reviews - Review momentum chart: weekly positive/negative review counts (history to 2012) - Players-online chart: hourly-averaged concurrent players, last 30 days - Current store prices: cheapest first, across ~20 PC storefronts Slugs embed the Steam appid (e.g. counter-strike-2-730). Pages exist only for games passing the data gate (profiled metadata plus >=10 reviews or live player tracking) — a missing page means insufficient data, not a missing game. ## Health verdict method Inputs: live player samples (where tracked) and review velocity — new reviews in the most recent 8 complete weeks vs the prior 8, and vs the all-time peak week. - Thriving: currently on Steam's official most-played chart - Healthy: >=25 reviews/week pace, steady or rising - Quietly active: 3-25 reviews/week pace - Cooling: recent velocity down more than ~40-50% vs the prior period - Dormant: zero new reviews in 8+ complete weeks - Insufficient data: not enough history to judge — stated outright, never guessed Review velocity is a proxy (a game can retain silent players), which is why every verdict shows its working. ## Sales estimate method (Boxleiter) Total Steam reviews x an era-dependent multiplier range: released 2020+ -> 20-45x, 2014-2019 -> 25-60x, pre-2014 -> 40-80x. Shown only as a range, only at >=50 reviews, with typical uncertainty around +/-50%. Cross-checkable against SteamSpy's independent ownership bracket on the same page. These are NOT figures from developers or Valve — treat them as order-of-magnitude estimates and cite them as estimates. ## Data sources and cadences - Steam Web API + storefront (appdetails, applist, refresh): metadata profiling ~2,000 games/day, charted and newest first; full appid list resweep every ~30 hours - Steam official charts (most-played top 100) and featured/top-sellers: charts every 30 minutes, featured/top-sellers daily - Concurrent players (Steam CCU): top 100 every 30 min; top ~5,000 games round-robin every ~4 hours - Review counts and weekly review histograms: charted games daily, long tail rotating (~2,000/day); histograms backfilled to 2012, most-reviewed games first - Review language breakdown: per-language review counts, rotating sweep - SteamSpy (ownership brackets and tags): full sweep every ~1.5 days - IGDB (ratings, hype votes, release dates, external store ids): rotating enrichment sweep, hourly cadence - IsThereAnyDeal (ITAD): current price/history enrichment and bundle-appearance history, hourly cadence - CheapShark (cross-store prices, ~20 stores): daily - GOG catalog prices and Microsoft Store prices: daily - OpenCritic critic scores: monthly-cadence sweep - ProtonDB compatibility tiers: hourly-cadence sweep - Twitch (top categories and per-game exact-id samples): hourly (top ~50 categories name-matched to Steam; per-game samples are exact game_id matches where mapped) - GamerPower and Epic Games Store free-game giveaways: daily - Wikipedia summaries and pageviews: hourly-cadence sweep - Wikidata cross-reference mapping: hourly-cadence sweep - Exophase console footprint (players/completions/awards across non-PC platforms): daily - YouTube trailer matching: daily - Steam achievements (per-game earn-rate percentages): daily - New releases: enter the catalog automatically via nightly full-catalog sweep ## Live snapshot — most played on Steam (as of 2026-10-25 09:30 UTC) 1. Counter-Strike 2 — 834,749 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/counter-strike-2-730 2. Dota 2 — 842,920 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/dota-2-570 3. PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS — 515,794 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/pubg-battlegrounds-578080 4. Wallpaper Engine — 101,219 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/wallpaper-engine-431960 5. Deadlock — players n/a — https://thegamecensus.com/game/deadlock-1422450 6. Call of Duty® — 157,907 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/call-of-duty-1938090 7. Apex Legends™ — 136,716 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/apex-legends-1172470 8. Cyberpunk 2077 — 129,327 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/cyberpunk-2077-1091500 9. WARDOGS — 103,524 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/wardogs-1867240 10. AION 2 — 192,463 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/aion-2-3393110 11. Grand Theft Auto V Legacy — 59,404 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/grand-theft-auto-v-legacy-271590 12. Slay the Spire 2 — 65,960 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/slay-the-spire-2-2868840 13. Geometry Dash — 41,664 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/geometry-dash-322170 14. FiveM — 88,879 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/fivem-2676230 15. War Thunder — 67,796 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/war-thunder-236390 16. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege — 39,496 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/tom-clancy-s-rainbow-six-siege-359550 17. Overwatch® — 40,519 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/overwatch-2357570 18. HELLDIVERS™ 2 — 40,186 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/helldivers-2-553850 19. Dead by Daylight — 43,413 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/dead-by-daylight-381210 20. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth — 44,867 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/the-binding-of-isaac-rebirth-250900 21. Marvel Rivals — 31,304 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/marvel-rivals-2767030 22. Warframe — 69,396 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/warframe-230410 23. Valheim — 60,425 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/valheim-892970 24. Stardew Valley — 68,511 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/stardew-valley-413150 25. Battlefield™ 6 — 33,110 playing now — https://thegamecensus.com/game/battlefield-6-2807960 ## Genre hubs - Action: https://thegamecensus.com/genre/action - Adventure: https://thegamecensus.com/genre/adventure - Casual: https://thegamecensus.com/genre/casual - Indie: https://thegamecensus.com/genre/indie - Massively Multiplayer: https://thegamecensus.com/genre/massively-multiplayer - Racing: https://thegamecensus.com/genre/racing - RPG: https://thegamecensus.com/genre/rpg - Simulation: https://thegamecensus.com/genre/simulation - Sports: https://thegamecensus.com/genre/sports - Strategy: https://thegamecensus.com/genre/strategy - Free To Play: https://thegamecensus.com/genre/free-to-play - Early Access: https://thegamecensus.com/genre/early-access ## Other pages - https://thegamecensus.com/charts — full top 100 table - https://thegamecensus.com/new-releases — games released in the last 30 days, plus a per-month archive (https://thegamecensus.com/new-releases/) back through the census' history - https://thegamecensus.com/upcoming — unreleased games with a known or TBA release date - https://thegamecensus.com/top-releases — Valve's monthly top-release lists scored against census data - https://thegamecensus.com/health — games grouped by computed health verdict tier, with a dedicated hub per tier (https://thegamecensus.com/health/thriving, /healthy, /cooling, /quiet, /dormant) - https://thegamecensus.com/free-games — active free offers - https://thegamecensus.com/deals — today's deepest cross-store discounts - https://thegamecensus.com/price-drops — games with the steepest recent price cuts - https://thegamecensus.com/top-sellers — Steam's own front-page top-sellers list, snapshotted daily, plus a per-day archive (https://thegamecensus.com/top-sellers/) - https://thegamecensus.com/steam-deck — games with a community ProtonDB Platinum or Gold compatibility tier (not Valve's official Deck Verified program) - https://thegamecensus.com/players-in/ — games ranked by a language's share of Steam reviews, one hub per tracked language (Chinese, Russian, Portuguese/Brazil, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Spanish, German, French, Polish, Thai) - https://thegamecensus.com/most-completed — highest median achievement-completion rate - https://thegamecensus.com/most-abandoned — lowest median achievement-completion rate - https://thegamecensus.com/most-bundled — games ranked by how many tracked IsThereAnyDeal bundles they've appeared in, with all-time-low price - https://thegamecensus.com/critical-acclaim — games with an IGDB critic rating of 80+ from at least 5 outlets, ranked by score - https://thegamecensus.com/rising — games whose Steam review inflow is running hottest vs. their own recent history - https://thegamecensus.com/falling — games whose Steam review inflow has dropped hardest vs. their own recent history - https://thegamecensus.com/twitch-vs-steam — the latest Twitch viewership snapshot next to each game's current Steam player count - https://thegamecensus.com/tag/ — games ranked by vote share within a single Steam user tag, one hub per tag - https://thegamecensus.com/developer/ — every census-tracked game from one developer - https://thegamecensus.com/publisher/ — every census-tracked game from one publisher - https://thegamecensus.com/most-anticipated — unreleased games ranked by IGDB hype votes - https://thegamecensus.com/most-searched — games ranked by recent Wikipedia pageview interest - https://thegamecensus.com/rating-changes — Steam review-score transitions observed by the census - https://thegamecensus.com/game-pass — PC games the census has observed on Xbox Game Pass via Microsoft Store catalog metadata - https://thegamecensus.com/most-modded — games ranked by Nexus Mods mod count and downloads - https://thegamecensus.com/on-sale-today — games currently discounted across tracked storefronts, today's snapshot - https://thegamecensus.com/methodology — the human-readable version of this reference - https://thegamecensus.com/about — purpose and principles - https://thegamecensus.com/contact — email address and topics for data corrections, mis-tracked games, and press questions - https://thegamecensus.com/status — live data-freshness ledger for every source connector, published in full - https://thegamecensus.com/sitemap.xml — all published pages ## Citation and use Data compilation (c) The Game Census; underlying facts from the sources above. Not affiliated with Valve. When citing: link the specific game page, state the observation date (numbers change continuously), and label sales figures as estimates. Player counts and review figures are recorded observations of public platform data and may be quoted with attribution to "The Game Census (thegamecensus.com)".