Life Sim games on Steam, measured
Games about living a second life: relationships, jobs, homes and daily routines.
922 games tagged Life Sim came out on Steam in 2025 (614 in 2024), and 1,043 have come out so far in 2026, +53% on the same weeks of 2025.
Of the 1,058 released between Jan 1, 2024 and Jun 30, 2025, 8.6% reached 1,000 reviews, against 4.2% across all of Steam (2.0× the Steam rate).
Most of the niche prices itself under $5 (2% reached 1,000 reviews there); $20 and up did best at 34.2%.
3,074 more Life Sim pages are on Steam but not released yet, 167 of them dated within 90 days.
Counted game by game from Steam's store on Sep 27, 2026. How we counted, and what the numbers can't tell you.
How fast the niche is filling
Games tagged Life Sim released each year. 2026 is counted to Sep 27, 2026; the same weeks of 2025 saw 683.
How its games did
Games released Jan 1, 2024 to Jun 30, 2025, so every one has been on sale at least 14 months, against every Steam game released in the same window. Reaching 1,000 reviews is the usual rule of thumb for roughly $150,000 in gross revenue; 100 reviews is real traction.
| Life Sim | All of Steam | |
|---|---|---|
| Games released | 1,058 | 24,918 |
| Reached 10 reviews | 72% | 53.2% |
| Reached 100 reviews | 32.8% | 17.3% |
| Reached 1,000 reviews | 8.6%95% range 7.1% to 10.4% | 4.2% |
| Median reviews | 36 | 11 |
| Median list price (paid games) | $6.99 | $4.99 |
| Free to play | 16.8% | 17.7% |
Price and outcome
The same cohort by undiscounted US list price on the day we counted. Higher prices go with bigger teams and more content, and a game that cut its price after a weak launch now sits in a cheaper band, so read this as what games priced like yours did, not as proof that raising a price lifts sales.
| Price | Games | 100+ reviews | 1,000+ reviews | Median reviews |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $5 | 357 | 11.8% | 2%1% to 4% | under 10 |
| $5 to $9.99 | 224 | 30.8% | 5.4%3.1% to 9.1% | 41 |
| $10 to $14.99 | 130 | 51.5% | 10.8%6.5% to 17.3% | 112 |
| $15 to $19.99 | 96 | 64.6% | 17.7%11.4% to 26.5% | 295 |
| $20 and up | 73 | 61.6% | 34.2%24.4% to 45.7% | 290 |
— fewer than 20 games, too few to compare.
Sub-niches: where the odds and the crowding differ
Other tags that appear in the top seven tags of Life Sim games. Tags that describe a look or a platform (Pixel Graphics, Singleplayer) are left out. Players add tags to games that are already popular, so narrow tags flatter their hit rates: compare sub-niches with each other, not with Steam.
Best odds
- Cozy: 27.8% reached 1,000 reviews (54 games)
- Crafting: 24.1% reached 1,000 reviews (54 games)
- Open World: 18.8% reached 1,000 reviews (69 games)
Filling fastest in 2026
- Shop Keeper: 138 so far vs 21 (+557%)
- Choices Matter: 54 so far vs 14 (+286%)
- Cozy: 98 so far vs 46 (+113%)
| Tag | Games (2024–2025 cohort) | 1,000+ reviews | 100+ reviews | 2026 so far vs 2025 | Unreleased |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Immersive Sim | 244 | 7%4.4% to 10.9% | 30.7% | 223 vs 164+36% | 612 |
| Management | 173 | 11.6%7.6% to 17.2% | 46.8% | 201 vs 135+49% | 545 |
| Sandbox | 155 | 8.4%5% to 13.8% | 36.1% | 143 vs 83+72% | 444 |
| Economy | 98 | 8.2%4.2% to 15.3% | 43.9% | 125 vs 82+52% | 282 |
| Idler | 82 | 9.8%5% to 18.1% | 28% | 114 vs 63+81% | 219 |
| Time Management | 84 | 6%2.6% to 13.2% | 29.8% | 101 vs 66+53% | 298 |
| Shop Keeper | 19 | — | — | 138 vs 21+557% | 319 |
| Farming Sim | 86 | 17.4%10.9% to 26.8% | 45.3% | 68 vs 58+17% | 313 |
| Cozy | 54 | 27.8%17.6% to 40.9% | 63% | 98 vs 46+113% | 292 |
| Building | 78 | 16.7%10% to 26.5% | 53.8% | 41 vs 60−32% | 210 |
| Crafting | 54 | 24.1%14.6% to 36.9% | 57.4% | 60 vs 32+88% | 240 |
| Visual Novel | 60 | 6.7%2.6% to 15.9% | 33.3% | 49 vs 27+82% | 150 |
| Incremental | 47 | 4.3%1.2% to 14.2% | 14.9% | 61 vs 37+65% | 125 |
| Open World | 69 | 18.8%11.4% to 29.6% | 55.1% | 34 vs 31+10% | 183 |
| Cooking | 41 | 2.4%0.4% to 12.6% | 36.6% | 57 vs 28+104% | 167 |
| Puzzle | 58 | 10.3%4.8% to 20.8% | 20.7% | 37 vs 24+54% | 93 |
| Dating Sim | 47 | 10.6%4.6% to 22.6% | 44.7% | 45 vs 22+105% | 150 |
| Choose Your Own Adventure | 46 | 2.2%0.4% to 11.3% | 4.3% | 41 vs 22+86% | 122 |
| Choices Matter | 28 | 14.3%5.7% to 31.5% | 21.4% | 54 vs 14+286% | 150 |
| Capitalism | 38 | 10.5%4.2% to 24.1% | 44.7% | 43 vs 30+43% | 100 |
| Creature Collector | 34 | 5.9%1.6% to 19.1% | 14.7% | 45 vs 28+61% | 130 |
| Resource Management | 26 | 3.8%0.7% to 18.9% | 30.8% | 50 vs 24+108% | 112 |
| Interactive Fiction | 34 | 0%0% to 10.2% | 14.7% | 41 vs 20+105% | 117 |
| Point & Click | 38 | 10.5%4.2% to 24.1% | 31.6% | 37 vs 24+54% | 94 |
— fewer than 20 games in the cohort. Ranges are 95% intervals.
What broke through in the last 12 months
The most-reviewed Life Sim games released since Sep 27, 2025. Still young, so these counts are still climbing.
- TCG Card Shop Simulator33,885 reviews, 96% positive · $19.99 · Sep 14, 2026
- Fields of Mistria25,394 reviews, 97% positive · $13.99 · Aug 5, 2026
- BidKing22,282 reviews, 33% positive · $2.99 · Apr 15, 2026
- Paralives14,457 reviews, 90% positive · $39.99 · May 25, 2026
- Mon Bazou10,938 reviews, 97% positive · $15.99 · Dec 18, 2025
- Waterpark Simulator9,818 reviews, 96% positive · $12.99 · Jul 31, 2026
- Heartopia8,041 reviews, 59% positive · Free · Jan 16, 2026
- My Winter Car6,642 reviews, 93% positive · $14.99 · Dec 29, 2025
What's coming
3,074 Life Sim pages are live on Steam but not released: 167 with a date in the next 90 days, 788 with a later date, month or quarter, and 2,119 saying "Coming soon" or "To be announced". For comparison, 922 came out in all of 2025.
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How we counted, and what the numbers can't tell you
- Every game carrying Steam's Life Sim tag (tag id 10235), read page by page from Steam's public store search on Sep 27, 2026: 7,006 games, 3,932 of them released (Steam's own released count: 3,932). Games only: no DLC, soundtracks or software.
- Success rates use one fixed cohort, games released Jan 1, 2024 to Jun 30, 2025, because review counts grow with age: a game from last month has not had time to reach 1,000 reviews, and comparing it with a 2024 game would measure age, not success.
- Review counts are the totals Steam's search shows a US visitor, which may count English-language reviews only. Steam prints no count under 10 reviews, so "under 10" is as precise as the data gets. Prices are the undiscounted US list price on the day we counted, not the launch price: a game that cut its price after launch counts at the new price.
- Tags are community tags. Players add them to games that are already popular, which flatters the hit rates of narrow tags. Delisted games and age-restricted games are not in Steam's default search, so they are not here either.
- "Reached 1,000 reviews" is a proxy for commercial success (roughly $150,000 gross by the common rule of thumb), not a revenue figure. We publish no revenue estimates.
- The full aggregate is public: /api/niches/data. Cite it as "Steam Niche Index, Steam Page Analyzer, September 2026".