Over two years, the number of idle games on Steam has increased fivefold: the state of the niche, revenue of top projects, and other metrics

Topics covered in this article:

• key characteristics of idlers and incremental games that distinguish them as a separate niche;
• how developers monetize idle games: the main methods;
• retention rates of popular idlers: from D1 to D90;
• a benchmark of the idler and incremental games segment: release counts, median revenue, etc.;
• earnings of top representatives of the genre, as well as the harsh reality of the market;
• the highest-grossing idle games on Steam: both free-to-play and paid.