{"id":351993,"date":"2025-08-07T09:08:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T13:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/?p=351993"},"modified":"2025-08-07T09:08:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T13:08:06","slug":"are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts","title":{"rendered":"Are developers on Steam somehow rigging player counts?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I love to browse around SteamDB every single day, since that&#8217;s where I discover the majority of obscure hits I&#8217;d never otherwise hear about. This week, I noticed something extraordinary going on with one game&#8217;s player base. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And no, not in the way Banana, that awful abomination, climbed the charts by sheer&#8230; luck? No, this game shot up from just about no players to a freakishly consistent 1280. I won&#8217;t mention the game, because it&#8217;s one of those adult titles that really have no place on Steam in the first place. But there&#8217;s definitely something up with it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From July 31 to Aug. 3, the most concurrent players this game managed to amass was five, but never less than one. Sometime on Saturday, Aug. 3, the game shot up to 1282 concurrent players, exactly. Since then, it&#8217;s never dropped below 1280, even once. But the graph itself should tell the story pretty effectively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" data-attachment-id=\"351996\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts\/attachment\/an-unnatural-steam-player-count-graph\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/An-unnatural-Steam-player-count-graph.jpg?fit=1200%2C675\" data-orig-size=\"1200,675\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"An-unnatural-Steam-player-count-graph\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Image via SteamDB&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/An-unnatural-Steam-player-count-graph.jpg?fit=300%2C169\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/An-unnatural-Steam-player-count-graph.jpg?fit=640%2C360\" src=\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/An-unnatural-Steam-player-count-graph.jpg?resize=640%2C360\" alt=\"A highly unnatural graph screenshot taken from SteamDB. \" class=\"wp-image-351996\" srcset=\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/An-unnatural-Steam-player-count-graph.jpg?w=1200 1200w, https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/An-unnatural-Steam-player-count-graph.jpg?w=300 300w, https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/An-unnatural-Steam-player-count-graph.jpg?w=768 768w, https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/An-unnatural-Steam-player-count-graph.jpg?w=1024 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Image via SteamDB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>You don&#8217;t need to be a genius to know that the graph is unnatural as heck. But so what? Obscure games get player spikes sometimes, right? Yeah, and those new players are quick to leave a review, usually. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But this game&#8217;s last review came on October 9, 2024. Not suspicious at all! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" data-attachment-id=\"351995\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts\/attachment\/steam-db-charts\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Steam-DB-charts.jpg?fit=1200%2C675\" data-orig-size=\"1200,675\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Steam-DB-charts\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Image via SteamDB&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Steam-DB-charts.jpg?fit=300%2C169\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Steam-DB-charts.jpg?fit=640%2C360\" src=\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Steam-DB-charts.jpg?resize=640%2C360\" alt=\"The trending graph on SteamDB.\" class=\"wp-image-351995\" srcset=\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Steam-DB-charts.jpg?w=1200 1200w, https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Steam-DB-charts.jpg?w=300 300w, https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Steam-DB-charts.jpg?w=768 768w, https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Steam-DB-charts.jpg?w=1024 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Image via SteamDB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, this seems to have been just the right influx the game needed to land on SteamDB&#8217;s trending page, shown above. Thankfully, it doesn&#8217;t seem to have boosted the game&#8217;s sales by very much. This could mean that, at least, Steam&#8217;s algorithm is doing its job quite well, and not promoting the game to more players all of a sudden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Probably because it doesn&#8217;t know who to promote the game to, because those players are all fake. Look, I could be wrong, but something certainly seems to be up here, right? What do you think? And how do you think Steam will react if developers are actually trying to artificially boost their games? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Harshly, I&#8217;d bet. It goes against the T&#8217;s and C&#8217;s, I&#8217;m willing to bet. Either way, this is a weird one, and I just had to say something. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Something fishy&#8217;s going on here&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":351994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_article_tier":null,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8934],"tags":[8919,8292],"internal-label":[9323],"invoiceable_action":[9032],"article_type":[8349],"class_list":["post-351993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured-well","tag-steam","article_type-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Are developers on Steam somehow rigging player counts? - Prima Games<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are developers on Steam somehow rigging player counts?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Something fishy&#039;s going on here...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prima Games\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-08-07T13:08:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-07T13:08:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Steam-logo.jpg?resize=768,432\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"432\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kyle Ferreira\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kyle Ferreira\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Kyle Ferreira\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/#\/schema\/person\/48fd34ec847c663df9445dfe1956ce1e\"},\"headline\":\"Are developers on Steam somehow rigging player counts?\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-08-07T13:08:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-07T13:08:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts\"},\"wordCount\":370,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Steam-logo.jpg?fit=1200%2C675\",\"keywords\":[\"Featured Well\",\"Steam\"],\"articleSection\":[\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts\",\"name\":\"Are developers on Steam somehow rigging player counts? 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My favorite game (no doubt driven by nostalgia) is Final Fantasy VII, but I'm always on the lookout for my new favorite.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/primagames.com\/author\/kyle-ferreira\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Are developers on Steam somehow rigging player counts? - Prima Games","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Are developers on Steam somehow rigging player counts?","og_description":"Something fishy's going on here...","og_url":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts","og_site_name":"Prima Games","article_published_time":"2025-08-07T13:08:04+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-08-07T13:08:06+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":432,"url":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Steam-logo.jpg?resize=768,432","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Kyle Ferreira","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Kyle Ferreira","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts"},"author":{"name":"Kyle Ferreira","@id":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/#\/schema\/person\/48fd34ec847c663df9445dfe1956ce1e"},"headline":"Are developers on Steam somehow rigging player counts?","datePublished":"2025-08-07T13:08:04+00:00","dateModified":"2025-08-07T13:08:06+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts"},"wordCount":370,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Steam-logo.jpg?fit=1200%2C675","keywords":["Featured Well","Steam"],"articleSection":["News"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts","url":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/news\/are-developers-on-steam-somehow-rigging-player-counts","name":"Are developers on Steam somehow rigging player counts? 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My favorite game (no doubt driven by nostalgia) is Final Fantasy VII, but I'm always on the lookout for my new favorite.","url":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/author\/kyle-ferreira"}]}},"apple_news_notices":[],"coauthors":[{"id":148,"display_name":"Kyle Ferreira","user_login":"kyle.ferreira","user_nicename":"kyle-ferreira"}],"raw_content":"I love to browse around SteamDB every single day, since that's where I discover the majority of obscure hits I'd never otherwise hear about. This week, I noticed something extraordinary going on with one game's player base. And no, not in the way Banana, that awful abomination, climbed the charts by sheer... luck? No, this game shot up from just about no players to a freakishly consistent 1280. I won't mention the game, because it's one of those adult titles that really have no place on Steam in the first place. But there's definitely something up with it. From July 31 to Aug. 3, the most concurrent players this game managed to amass was five, but never less than one. Sometime on Saturday, Aug. 3, the game shot up to 1282 concurrent players, exactly. Since then, it's never dropped below 1280, even once. But the graph itself should tell the story pretty effectively. You don't need to be a genius to know that the graph is unnatural as heck. But so what? Obscure games get player spikes sometimes, right? Yeah, and those new players are quick to leave a review, usually. But this game's last review came on October 9, 2024. Not suspicious at all! Finally, this seems to have been just the right influx the game needed to land on SteamDB's trending page, shown above. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to have boosted the game's sales by very much. This could mean that, at least, Steam's algorithm is doing its job quite well, and not promoting the game to more players all of a sudden. Probably because it doesn't know who to promote the game to, because those players are all fake. Look, I could be wrong, but something certainly seems to be up here, right? What do you think? And how do you think Steam will react if developers are actually trying to artificially boost their games? Harshly, I'd bet. It goes against the T's and C's, I'm willing to bet. Either way, this is a weird one, and I just had to say something.","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Steam-logo.jpg?fit=1200%2C675","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351993"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":351998,"href":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351993\/revisions\/351998"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351993"},{"taxonomy":"internal-label","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal-label?post=351993"},{"taxonomy":"invoiceable_action","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/invoiceable_action?post=351993"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primagames.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=351993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}