Steam’s set-up has been growing steadily, and the latest data show that this type has now become one of the most stable types of income on the Steam platform. AppMagic recently published a breakdown of the top 50 placements from 2024 to 2026 in Steam, which strongly suggest that the placements have found comfort loops on the PC platform.
The concept of placing a type of game is very simple: to start the game, to keep it running and to move on. This cycle dates back to the 2013 web game Cookie Cricker, which has been in operation in Steam for many years. And the data from AppMagic show that this game pattern has recently developed dramatically.
The free MMO ” IdleOn ” , developed by Lavaframe2, earned more than $22 million in 2025 alone, with a cumulative revenue of nearly $59 million. The Farmer Was Replaced is a game that allows players to automate their farms by writing codes and earn more than $4.5 million. A few months after the Scratchy Scratchy hit game was released in March 2026, revenues exceeded $3 million.
With regard to the fee-paying game, the desktop-aided game, Rusty’s Retiration, has a sales volume of more than 880,000 and is at the top of the list, followed by The Farmer Was Replaced and Tiny Pasture. Cookie Cricker has been on sale for more than a decade, but since it landed at Steam in 2021 it has sold approximately 720,000 copies.
Recent new figures tracked by AppMagic show that the retention rate for first-day players is usually between 40 and 70 per cent and then decreases as expected. The Farmer Was Replaced, which had a 30-day retention rate of over 10 per cent, was cited by AppMagic as an exceptionally high figure for the same type of game.
The current status of the Steam type games reflects the priority development path of their mobile end. By 2022, placements have become one of the most dynamic types of mobile-end performance, such as Gold and Goblins, with more than 69 million downloads. By mid-2023, however, this growth had slowed, in part because of the increased cost to users following the change in Apple IDFA (advertising identifier). As mobile growth slowed, similar concepts began to appear on Steam in new forms.
AppMagic divides Steam’s current placement game into a few categories. Desktop games, such as Rusty’s Response and Cast n Chill, designed for backstage operations only apply to the PC end, as PC users usually need to open multiple windows or use additional screens.
IdleOn and The Farmer Was Replaced Such a system-driven game goes further, creating a game experience close to the role-playing game rather than the traditional placement type through a layer-by-layer progressive progress system. And a lightweight game like Bongo Cat, which is in the taskbar and can respond to a player’s key-button operation, relies entirely on simplicity and easy to share.
The Steam price of the game is usually between US$ 3 and US$ 15, and the relatively low price is sufficient to reduce player hesitation in purchasing. Free games are closer to moving-end models, and IdleOn is the best example of how this model can succeed in Steam. AppMagic notes that the real competitors for these games are not other kinds of games, but other programs that the players open on their computers.