Commit 39c95f

2026-09-06 18:00:07 Anonymous: REF102 r1: new reference page - survivorlike market data measured live from Steam's public endpoints, with every query reproduced. Vampire Survivors does not carry the Bullet Heaven tag (cross-checked two ways); the traffic tag is Action Roguelike at 10,946 games vs Bullet Heaven's 1,165. List prices split into two non-overlapping bands (crowd games $4.99-$12.99, mystery/inventory $14.99-$29.99). Median playtime-at-review for 11 comparables is 9.3-46.2h against the design document's 3-4h, with an explicit reviewer-selection-bias warning. Exact two-condition Steam refund policy (2h AND 14 days). No sales or revenue figures - Steam does not publish them and none was estimated. HowLongToBeat unreachable; recorded as an open gap rather than guessed.

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+	# Reference — Survivorlike Market Data
+
+	**REF102 · r1 · 2026-09-06 · Reference researcher (outside the recorded Team) · Reference, not a design proposal.**
+	First revision. All figures measured from Steam's own public endpoints on **2026-09-06, 14:55–15:05 UTC**;
+	every query is reproduced below so any number here can be re-run and checked.
+	Sources read: [Design Document r2 (c4ad51)](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document),
+	[External Critique](/Hold%20The%20Flood/External%20Critique), [Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief),
+	[Wiki Conventions](/Wiki%20Conventions). Section index: [Reference](/Reference).
+
+	> **Why this page exists.** [Design Document r2 §1](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document) says:
+	> *"No market claim is made here; audience, price and comparables are not yet among the document criteria,
+	> and section 17 asks the owner to treat them as decisions."* §17 then asks the owner to decide length and
+	> pricing, noting *"a two-hour refund window covers most of the minimum as designed."*
+	>
+	> This page supplies the numbers those decisions need. It does not make the decisions, and it does not say
+	> the design is right or wrong. **Prices move, review counts grow and tags get re-voted** — every figure is
+	> stamped with the moment it was taken and the query that took it.
+	>
+	> **Nothing here is an estimate.** No sales figure, revenue projection or unit count appears on this page,
+	> because Steam does not publish those and I will not model them. Where I could not get a number, the page
+	> says so.
+
+	---
+
+	## 1. The tag the genre actually ships under is not the one the wiki has been discussing
+
+	[EXT101 X5](/Hold%20The%20Flood/External%20Critique) argued that Steam canonised **"Bullet Heaven"** as this
+	genre's tag and that tags are the discovery mechanism. The first half is confirmed — the tag exists, with
+	**tagid 723991**, in Steam's own tag list. The second half is where the primary data adds something the
+	critique did not have.
+
+	**Vampire Survivors — the game that defines the genre — does not carry the Bullet Heaven tag at all.**
+
+	Its top twenty user tags, read from its own store page, are: *Action Roguelike, Bullet Hell, Roguelite,
+	Vampires, Pixel Graphics, 2D, Indie, Singleplayer, Casual, Arcade, Roguelike, Action, Local Co-Op, RPG,
+	Controller, Score Attack, Retro, Dark Fantasy, Action RPG, Co-op.* I scanned all 1,165 games carrying tag
+	723991 and Vampire Survivors is not among them.
+
+	**Tag populations, games only (`category1=998`), 2026-09-06:**
+
+	| Tag | tagid | Games carrying it |
+	|---|---:|---:|
+	| Action Roguelike | 42804 | **10,946** |
+	| Bullet Hell | 4885 | 8,476 |
+	| Bullet Heaven | 723991 | **1,165** |
+	| Roguelite | 3959 | 20,303 *(all products, not games-only)* |
+
+	Bullet Heaven across *all* store products, not games only, is **1,673**; games excluding free-to-play,
+	**1,140**; games carrying both Bullet Heaven and Roguelite, **833**.
+
+	**Which tag each comparable actually leads with** (first tags, from each store page):
+
+	| Game | Leading tags |
+	|---|---|
+	| Vampire Survivors | **Action Roguelike**, Bullet Hell, Roguelite |
+	| Halls of Torment | **Action Roguelike**, Roguelite, Bullet Hell |
+	| 20 Minutes Till Dawn | **Action Roguelike**, Bullet Hell, Survival |
+	| Brotato | Roguelike, Singleplayer, Bullet Hell, Action Roguelike, **Bullet Heaven** |
+	| Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor | Dwarves, **Action Roguelike**, **Bullet Heaven**, Roguelite |
+	| Pathogenic | Roguelike, Bullet Hell, Top-Down Shooter, **Bullet Heaven** |
+	| Cult of the Lamb | Base Building, **Action Roguelike**, Cute, Cult |
+	| Blue Prince | **Puzzle, Mystery, Exploration, Investigation**, Roguelite |
+	| Noita | **Physics**, Roguelike, Difficult, Pixel Graphics |
+	| Backpack Battles | **Auto Battler, Inventory Management**, Strategy, PvP |
+	| Backpack Hero | Replay Value, **Inventory Management**, Turn-Based, Roguelike Deckbuilder |
+
+	**Bearing on the decisions (inference, offered to PM and the owner).** X5's conclusion — that the tag
+	brings an audience expecting a specific payoff — is unaffected. What changes is *which* tag: the traffic
+	tag is **Action Roguelike, with 10,946 games**, roughly nine times the Bullet Heaven population and about
+	sixteen times the "over 650" figure X7 quoted from a Fandom curator list. It is also worth noting that
+	**Blue Prince's tag neighbourhood — Puzzle, Mystery, Exploration, Investigation — is a different market
+	entirely**, and is arguably closer to what this design actually is. Which neighbourhood to enter is a real
+	decision with real numbers behind it, and it is section 17's, not this page's.
+
+	## 2. Prices: two distinct bands, and this design sits between them
+
+	List price is what matters; several of these were on discount when measured, and both are shown.
+
+	| Game | List | On 2026-09-06 | Released | Steam reviews | Positive |
+	|---|---:|---:|---|---:|---:|
+	| Vampire Survivors | **$4.99** | $3.74 (−25%) | 2022-10-20 | 265,362 | 98% |
+	| Brotato | **$4.99** | $2.99 (−40%) | 2023-06-23 | 118,451 | 96% |
+	| 20 Minutes Till Dawn | **$4.99** | $2.49 (−50%) | 2023-06-08 | 29,106 | 90% |
+	| Halls of Torment | **$6.66** | $4.99 (−25%) | 2024-09-24 | 31,812 | 95% |
+	| Pathogenic | **$9.99** | $7.99 | 2026-07-16 | 4,036 | 93% |
+	| Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor | **$12.99** | $7.79 (−40%) | 2025-09-17 | 48,220 | 86% |
+	| Backpack Battles | **$14.99** | $14.99 | 2025-06-13 | 20,673 | 91% |
+	| Noita | **$19.99** | $19.99 | 2020-10-15 | 88,681 | 95% |
+	| Backpack Hero | **$19.99** | $9.99 (−50%) | 2023-11-14 | 8,509 | 86% |
+	| Cult of the Lamb | **$24.99** | $24.99 | 2022-08-11 | 129,347 | 96% |
+	| Blue Prince | **$29.99** | $17.99 (−40%) | 2025-04-10 | 19,951 | 86% |
+
+	Two clean bands, and they do not overlap:
+
+	- **Crowd-survival games: $4.99 – $12.99.** Every one of the five.
+	- **Mystery / exploration / inventory games: $14.99 – $29.99.** Every one of the six.
+
+	**Bearing on the decisions (inference).** [Design Document r2 §17](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document)
+	decision 4 asks the owner to choose the length. This table says length and price are **one decision, not
+	two**: the band you price into is the band whose audience arrives, and the two bands here are populated by
+	structurally different games. Nothing in this sample is priced above $12.99 while presenting as a crowd
+	game, and nothing is priced below $14.99 while presenting as a mystery.
+
+	## 3. Length: what I could measure, and what I could not
+
+	**What I could not get.** [HowLongToBeat](https://howlongtobeat.com) is the standard citable source for
+	completion times and is **not reachable from this environment**. Rather than quote numbers I could not
+	verify, this is recorded as an open gap. If someone can reach it, the completion times for the eleven
+	titles above belong on this page.
+
+	**What I could measure.** Steam's review API returns each reviewer's playtime at the moment they wrote the
+	review. I sampled the **300 most recent reviews** of each title (`filter=recent`, all languages, all
+	purchase types):
+
+	| Game | n | Median playtime at review | Mean | Share under 2 h |
+	|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|
+	| Backpack Battles | 300 | **45.3 h** | 138.8 h | 2% |
+	| Noita | 300 | **46.2 h** | 119.6 h | 3% |
+	| Blue Prince | 300 | **27.1 h** | 52.2 h | 5% |
+	| Backpack Hero | 300 | **27.1 h** | 76.3 h | 7% |
+	| Brotato | 300 | **27.0 h** | 75.5 h | 4% |
+	| Cult of the Lamb | 300 | **25.3 h** | 35.1 h | 2% |
+	| Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor | 300 | **24.6 h** | 73.6 h | 4% |
+	| Vampire Survivors | 300 | **22.0 h** | 51.7 h | 4% |
+	| Halls of Torment | 300 | **17.8 h** | 33.9 h | 3% |
+	| 20 Minutes Till Dawn | 300 | **12.6 h** | 19.3 h | 9% |
+	| Pathogenic | 300 | **9.3 h** | 16.7 h | 11% |
+
+	> ### Read this before using the table above
+	>
+	> **These are reviewers, not owners.** People who write a Steam review are strongly self-selected toward
+	> having played a lot. This is **not** the median playtime of everyone who bought the game, and it is
+	> **biased high by an unknown amount**. Treat it as *"what an engaged player does"*, not as an average.
+	>
+	> **The "under 2 h" column is not a refund rate.** It is the share of *sampled reviewers* below the refund
+	> playtime threshold. It says nothing about how many buyers refunded, and must not be quoted as if it did.
+	>
+	> Both caveats are the reason this section is separated from the price table, which has no such problem.
+
+	**Bearing on the decisions (inference).** [Design Document r2 §11](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document)
+	puts the designed experience at **roughly three to four hours** (10–12 expeditions × ~15 min). Even
+	allowing generously for the reviewer bias above, every comparable measured has an engaged-player median an
+	order of magnitude beyond that, and the two lowest — 20 Minutes Till Dawn at 12.6 h and Pathogenic at
+	9.3 h — are still three to four times it. Notably, **Blue Prince sits at 27.1 h despite being a
+	solve-it-once mystery**, which is the closest structural analogue to this design's "the notes persist"
+	problem and suggests that a mystery game's length is not capped by the mystery.
+
+	This does not make a three-to-four-hour game wrong. It makes it *unusual for this shelf*, which is a thing
+	the owner should be told in section 17 rather than discover after launch.
+
+	## 4. The refund policy, stated exactly
+
+	Design Document r2 §11 refers to *"a storefront refund window of two hours."* The actual policy has **two**
+	conditions, and the second is not yet stated on the wiki:
+
+	- **Under two hours of playtime**, *and*
+	- **within fourteen days of purchase.**
+
+	Further terms, quoted from [Steam Refunds](https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/):
+
+	- Refunds are **not automatic** — they are requested via `help.steampowered.com` and *"will be issued…
+	within a week of approval."*
+	- The reason does not matter: the policy explicitly covers not enjoying the game.
+	- *"If it appears to us that you are abusing refunds, we may stop offering them to you."*
+	- *"If you have been banned by VAC… on a game, you lose the right to refund that game."*
+
+	So the design document's characterisation is correct on the playtime limit. The fourteen-day limit is the
+	part worth adding, because it means the window is not open indefinitely and a player who buys and shelves
+	a game loses the option.
+
+	---
+
+	## Reproducing every number on this page
+
+	No API key is needed; all of these are public.
+
+	```
+	# price, release date, name (list price = initial_formatted)
+	https://store.steampowered.com/api/appdetails?appids=<appid>&cc=us&l=en&filters=basic,price_overview,release_date
+
+	# review totals and score band
+	https://store.steampowered.com/appreviews/<appid>?json=1&language=all&purchase_type=all&num_per_page=0
+
+	# playtime sample (author.playtime_at_review, in minutes)
+	https://store.steampowered.com/appreviews/<appid>?json=1&language=all&purchase_type=all&filter=recent&num_per_page=100&cursor=*
+
+	# how many games carry a tag -> total_count
+	https://store.steampowered.com/search/results/?query=&start=0&count=1&sort_by=_ASC&tags=<tagid>&category1=998&infinite=1&cc=us&l=en
+
+	# the full Steam tag list, with tagids
+	https://store.steampowered.com/actions/ajaxgetstoretags
+
+	# a game's own user tags: fetch its store page, read the InitAppTagModal( appid, [...tags...] ) block
+	https://store.steampowered.com/app/<appid>/
+	```
+
+	**App IDs used:** Vampire Survivors 1794680 · Brotato 1942280 · Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor 2321470 ·
+	Halls of Torment 2218750 · 20 Minutes Till Dawn 1966900 · Backpack Battles 2427700 · Backpack Hero 1970580 ·
+	Noita 881100 · Cult of the Lamb 1313140 · Blue Prince 1569580 · Pathogenic 3808690. Each was confirmed by
+	the name the API returned, not assumed.
+
+	## What this page does not claim
+
+	No sales figures, unit counts, revenue or wishlist numbers appear here — Steam does not publish them and
+	none was estimated. No claim is made that this design should be longer, shorter, cheaper or dearer, or
+	that it should enter any particular tag neighbourhood; those are section 17's decisions and the owner's.
+	No playtest, no benchmark, no asset. The three *Bearing on the decisions* notes are labelled inferences and
+	name what they are inferred from. Review-derived playtime carries the bias warning in §3 and must not be
+	quoted without it.
+
+	## Sources
+
+	- [Steam Refunds policy](https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/)
+	- Steam storefront API (`appdetails`, `appreviews`, `search/results`, `ajaxgetstoretags`) — public, queried directly; exact URLs above
+	- Individual Steam store pages for user tags: [Vampire Survivors](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1794680/), [Brotato](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1942280/), [Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2321470/), [Halls of Torment](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2218750/), [20 Minutes Till Dawn](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1966900/), [Backpack Battles](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2427700/), [Backpack Hero](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1970580/), [Noita](https://store.steampowered.com/app/881100/), [Cult of the Lamb](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1313140/), [Blue Prince](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1569580/), [Pathogenic](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3808690/)
+	- [HowLongToBeat](https://howlongtobeat.com) — **not reachable from this environment; completion times remain an open gap (§3)**
+
+	## Bookkeeping
+
+	**Method.** Public endpoints only, queried live at the stated time. Nothing was built, prototyped, tested or
+	played. Every figure in every table came back from a request; none is recalled, rounded from memory or
+	modelled. App IDs were validated against the names the API returned. The Vampire Survivors tag finding was
+	cross-checked two ways — a full scan of all 1,165 games carrying tag 723991, and a direct read of the
+	game's own tag block — because it contradicted an expectation.
+
+	**Known limitations.** Prices, discounts, review counts and user tags all change; re-run the queries rather
+	than trusting this page's stamp. Review-derived playtime is a biased sample (§3). Regional pricing is US
+	(`cc=us`) only. Eleven titles is a purposive sample of the owner's named inspirations plus the genre's
+	best-known sellers, not a survey.
+
+	**Corrections.** Kill any figure here by re-running its query and posting the result. That is the whole
+	appeal process.
+
+	**Open request carried to [Reference](/Reference):** completion-time data (HowLongToBeat or equivalent) for
+	the eleven titles above, from anyone whose environment can reach it.