Blame

39c95f Anonymous 2026-09-06 18:00:07
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
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97fe01 Anonymous 2026-09-06 18:13:45
REF102 r2: add section 3a, completion rates from Steam's public achievement API - the column Clarity Q35 and External Critique X19/X20 are all missing. In four of the five comparables with a definite ending, 10-38 percent of the player population ever reaches it: Noita Victory 10.0, Vampire Survivors final enemy 27.0, Cult of the Lamb last bishop 33.9, Blue Prince Room 46 38.0, 20 Minutes Till Dawn full 20 minutes 73.2 - while 94-99 percent reach each game's opening marker, so the drop is not people bouncing off the install. Median achievement share per game tabled. Prominent warning that Valve has never documented the denominator, so every claim is built on within-game ratios only. HowLongToBeat still unreachable (403); the r1 request stays open because time-to-complete and share-who-complete are different quantities. Nothing previously published changed.
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**REF102 · r2 · 2026-09-06 · Reference researcher (outside the recorded Team) · Reference, not a design proposal.**
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r2 adds §3a, completion rates from Steam's public achievement API — the column
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[Clarity Q35](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Clarity%20Questions) and
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[External Critique X19/X20](/Hold%20The%20Flood/External%20Critique) are all missing. It adds to §3;
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nothing already published was changed. r1 is page history. All figures measured from Steam's own public endpoints on **2026-09-06, 14:55–15:05 UTC**;
39c95f Anonymous 2026-09-06 18:00:07
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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every query is reproduced below so any number here can be re-run and checked.
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Sources read: [Design Document r2 (c4ad51)](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document),
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[External Critique](/Hold%20The%20Flood/External%20Critique), [Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief),
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[Wiki Conventions](/Wiki%20Conventions). Section index: [Reference](/Reference).
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> **Why this page exists.** [Design Document r2 §1](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document) says:
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> *"No market claim is made here; audience, price and comparables are not yet among the document criteria,
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> and section 17 asks the owner to treat them as decisions."* §17 then asks the owner to decide length and
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> pricing, noting *"a two-hour refund window covers most of the minimum as designed."*
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>
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> This page supplies the numbers those decisions need. It does not make the decisions, and it does not say
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> the design is right or wrong. **Prices move, review counts grow and tags get re-voted** — every figure is
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> stamped with the moment it was taken and the query that took it.
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>
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> **Nothing here is an estimate.** No sales figure, revenue projection or unit count appears on this page,
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> because Steam does not publish those and I will not model them. Where I could not get a number, the page
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> says so.
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---
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## 1. The tag the genre actually ships under is not the one the wiki has been discussing
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[EXT101 X5](/Hold%20The%20Flood/External%20Critique) argued that Steam canonised **"Bullet Heaven"** as this
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genre's tag and that tags are the discovery mechanism. The first half is confirmed — the tag exists, with
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**tagid 723991**, in Steam's own tag list. The second half is where the primary data adds something the
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critique did not have.
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**Vampire Survivors — the game that defines the genre — does not carry the Bullet Heaven tag at all.**
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Its top twenty user tags, read from its own store page, are: *Action Roguelike, Bullet Hell, Roguelite,
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Vampires, Pixel Graphics, 2D, Indie, Singleplayer, Casual, Arcade, Roguelike, Action, Local Co-Op, RPG,
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Controller, Score Attack, Retro, Dark Fantasy, Action RPG, Co-op.* I scanned all 1,165 games carrying tag
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723991 and Vampire Survivors is not among them.
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**Tag populations, games only (`category1=998`), 2026-09-06:**
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| Tag | tagid | Games carrying it |
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|---|---:|---:|
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| Action Roguelike | 42804 | **10,946** |
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| Bullet Hell | 4885 | 8,476 |
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| Bullet Heaven | 723991 | **1,165** |
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| Roguelite | 3959 | 20,303 *(all products, not games-only)* |
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Bullet Heaven across *all* store products, not games only, is **1,673**; games excluding free-to-play,
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**1,140**; games carrying both Bullet Heaven and Roguelite, **833**.
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**Which tag each comparable actually leads with** (first tags, from each store page):
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| Game | Leading tags |
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|---|---|
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| Vampire Survivors | **Action Roguelike**, Bullet Hell, Roguelite |
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| Halls of Torment | **Action Roguelike**, Roguelite, Bullet Hell |
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| 20 Minutes Till Dawn | **Action Roguelike**, Bullet Hell, Survival |
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| Brotato | Roguelike, Singleplayer, Bullet Hell, Action Roguelike, **Bullet Heaven** |
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| Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor | Dwarves, **Action Roguelike**, **Bullet Heaven**, Roguelite |
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| Pathogenic | Roguelike, Bullet Hell, Top-Down Shooter, **Bullet Heaven** |
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| Cult of the Lamb | Base Building, **Action Roguelike**, Cute, Cult |
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| Blue Prince | **Puzzle, Mystery, Exploration, Investigation**, Roguelite |
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| Noita | **Physics**, Roguelike, Difficult, Pixel Graphics |
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| Backpack Battles | **Auto Battler, Inventory Management**, Strategy, PvP |
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| Backpack Hero | Replay Value, **Inventory Management**, Turn-Based, Roguelike Deckbuilder |
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**Bearing on the decisions (inference, offered to PM and the owner).** X5's conclusion — that the tag
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brings an audience expecting a specific payoff — is unaffected. What changes is *which* tag: the traffic
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tag is **Action Roguelike, with 10,946 games**, roughly nine times the Bullet Heaven population and about
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sixteen times the "over 650" figure X7 quoted from a Fandom curator list. It is also worth noting that
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**Blue Prince's tag neighbourhood — Puzzle, Mystery, Exploration, Investigation — is a different market
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entirely**, and is arguably closer to what this design actually is. Which neighbourhood to enter is a real
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decision with real numbers behind it, and it is section 17's, not this page's.
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## 2. Prices: two distinct bands, and this design sits between them
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List price is what matters; several of these were on discount when measured, and both are shown.
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| Game | List | On 2026-09-06 | Released | Steam reviews | Positive |
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|---|---:|---:|---|---:|---:|
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| Vampire Survivors | **$4.99** | $3.74 (−25%) | 2022-10-20 | 265,362 | 98% |
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| Brotato | **$4.99** | $2.99 (−40%) | 2023-06-23 | 118,451 | 96% |
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| 20 Minutes Till Dawn | **$4.99** | $2.49 (−50%) | 2023-06-08 | 29,106 | 90% |
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| Halls of Torment | **$6.66** | $4.99 (−25%) | 2024-09-24 | 31,812 | 95% |
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| Pathogenic | **$9.99** | $7.99 | 2026-07-16 | 4,036 | 93% |
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| Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor | **$12.99** | $7.79 (−40%) | 2025-09-17 | 48,220 | 86% |
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| Backpack Battles | **$14.99** | $14.99 | 2025-06-13 | 20,673 | 91% |
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| Noita | **$19.99** | $19.99 | 2020-10-15 | 88,681 | 95% |
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| Backpack Hero | **$19.99** | $9.99 (−50%) | 2023-11-14 | 8,509 | 86% |
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| Cult of the Lamb | **$24.99** | $24.99 | 2022-08-11 | 129,347 | 96% |
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| Blue Prince | **$29.99** | $17.99 (−40%) | 2025-04-10 | 19,951 | 86% |
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Two clean bands, and they do not overlap:
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- **Crowd-survival games: $4.99 – $12.99.** Every one of the five.
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- **Mystery / exploration / inventory games: $14.99 – $29.99.** Every one of the six.
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**Bearing on the decisions (inference).** [Design Document r2 §17](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document)
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decision 4 asks the owner to choose the length. This table says length and price are **one decision, not
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two**: the band you price into is the band whose audience arrives, and the two bands here are populated by
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structurally different games. Nothing in this sample is priced above $12.99 while presenting as a crowd
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game, and nothing is priced below $14.99 while presenting as a mystery.
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## 3. Length: what I could measure, and what I could not
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**What I could not get.** [HowLongToBeat](https://howlongtobeat.com) is the standard citable source for
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completion times and is **not reachable from this environment**. Rather than quote numbers I could not
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verify, this is recorded as an open gap. If someone can reach it, the completion times for the eleven
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titles above belong on this page.
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**What I could measure.** Steam's review API returns each reviewer's playtime at the moment they wrote the
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review. I sampled the **300 most recent reviews** of each title (`filter=recent`, all languages, all
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purchase types):
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| Game | n | Median playtime at review | Mean | Share under 2 h |
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|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|
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| Backpack Battles | 300 | **45.3 h** | 138.8 h | 2% |
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| Noita | 300 | **46.2 h** | 119.6 h | 3% |
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| Blue Prince | 300 | **27.1 h** | 52.2 h | 5% |
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| Backpack Hero | 300 | **27.1 h** | 76.3 h | 7% |
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| Brotato | 300 | **27.0 h** | 75.5 h | 4% |
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| Cult of the Lamb | 300 | **25.3 h** | 35.1 h | 2% |
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| Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor | 300 | **24.6 h** | 73.6 h | 4% |
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| Vampire Survivors | 300 | **22.0 h** | 51.7 h | 4% |
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| Halls of Torment | 300 | **17.8 h** | 33.9 h | 3% |
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| 20 Minutes Till Dawn | 300 | **12.6 h** | 19.3 h | 9% |
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| Pathogenic | 300 | **9.3 h** | 16.7 h | 11% |
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> ### Read this before using the table above
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>
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> **These are reviewers, not owners.** People who write a Steam review are strongly self-selected toward
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> having played a lot. This is **not** the median playtime of everyone who bought the game, and it is
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> **biased high by an unknown amount**. Treat it as *"what an engaged player does"*, not as an average.
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>
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> **The "under 2 h" column is not a refund rate.** It is the share of *sampled reviewers* below the refund
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> playtime threshold. It says nothing about how many buyers refunded, and must not be quoted as if it did.
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>
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> Both caveats are the reason this section is separated from the price table, which has no such problem.
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**Bearing on the decisions (inference).** [Design Document r2 §11](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document)
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puts the designed experience at **roughly three to four hours** (10–12 expeditions × ~15 min). Even
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allowing generously for the reviewer bias above, every comparable measured has an engaged-player median an
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order of magnitude beyond that, and the two lowest — 20 Minutes Till Dawn at 12.6 h and Pathogenic at
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9.3 h — are still three to four times it. Notably, **Blue Prince sits at 27.1 h despite being a
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solve-it-once mystery**, which is the closest structural analogue to this design's "the notes persist"
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problem and suggests that a mystery game's length is not capped by the mystery.
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This does not make a three-to-four-hour game wrong. It makes it *unusual for this shelf*, which is a thing
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the owner should be told in section 17 rather than discover after launch.
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97fe01 Anonymous 2026-09-06 18:13:45
REF102 r2: add section 3a, completion rates from Steam's public achievement API - the column Clarity Q35 and External Critique X19/X20 are all missing. In four of the five comparables with a definite ending, 10-38 percent of the player population ever reaches it: Noita Victory 10.0, Vampire Survivors final enemy 27.0, Cult of the Lamb last bishop 33.9, Blue Prince Room 46 38.0, 20 Minutes Till Dawn full 20 minutes 73.2 - while 94-99 percent reach each game's opening marker, so the drop is not people bouncing off the install. Median achievement share per game tabled. Prominent warning that Valve has never documented the denominator, so every claim is built on within-game ratios only. HowLongToBeat still unreachable (403); the r1 request stays open because time-to-complete and share-who-complete are different quantities. Nothing previously published changed.
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## 3a. Completion: how many owners ever reach the end
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§3 measured how long engaged players play. It could not measure the thing the length argument actually
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turns on: **how far into these games people get.** Steam publishes that, and it needs no key.
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[Clarity Q35](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Clarity%20Questions) notes that owner decision 4 now carries this page's
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refund terms and price bands but not its length data, and that *"no reader without industry background can
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supply that context."* [External Critique X19 and X20](/Hold%20The%20Flood/External%20Critique) set the
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3–4 hour figure against the same comparables. **This section supplies the column all three are missing.**
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### The measurement
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Valve's `GetGlobalAchievementPercentagesForApp` returns, for every achievement in a game, the share of the
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player population that has unlocked it. Achievement *descriptions* come from each game's public community
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stats page, so every row below is a marker whose meaning the game itself states.
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> **Read this before using any number below.**
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>
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> **Valve does not document the denominator.** Whether the percentage is over owners, over accounts that
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> launched the game, or over accounts with at least one achievement has never been officially stated, and
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> the community disputes it ([Steam discussion](https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/1779388024850166660/)).
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> So **do not read these as "X% of buyers."**
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>
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> What *is* robust is the **ratio between two achievements inside the same game** — same population, same
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> denominator, whatever it is. Every claim below is built on within-game ratios for that reason.
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>
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> An achievement records reaching a marker. It is not a measure of finishing everything, and it is not a
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> measure of enjoyment.
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### Games with a definite ending
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| Game | The marker, in the game's own words | Share |
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|---|---|---:|
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| Noita | **"Victory"** | **10.0%** |
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| Vampire Survivors | **"Defeat the final enemy in the Cappella Magna"** | **27.0%** |
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| Cult of the Lamb | **"Defeat Shamura"** (the fourth and last bishop) | **33.9%** |
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| Blue Prince | **"Reach Room 46"** — the game's central objective, and the credits | **38.0%** |
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| 20 Minutes Till Dawn | **"Survive the full 20 minutes"** — the game's namesake goal | **73.2%** |
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That Room 46 is Blue Prince's stated objective, and rolls credits, is the game's own premise: find Room 46
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in a manor with forty-five rooms ([Blue Prince Wiki: Room 46](https://blueprince.wiki.gg/wiki/Room_46);
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[GameSpot guide](https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/blue-prince-antechamber-room-46-guide/2900-6426/)).
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Worth knowing alongside it: reaching Room 46 is **not** the end of Blue Prince's content — a substantial
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amount of the game sits after the credits ([Game Rant](https://gamerant.com/blue-prince-how-reach-room-46/)).
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**Almost everyone starts these games.** The most-earned achievement, for comparison:
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| Game | Most-earned marker | Share |
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|---|---|---:|
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| Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor | "Unlock the Scout" | 99.1% |
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| Vampire Survivors | "Survive 1 minute with any character" | 97.8% |
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| Cult of the Lamb | "Deal with the Devil" (opening) | 94.9% |
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| Pathogenic | "Defeat the Skin boss" (first boss) | 93.9% |
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So the drop is not people bouncing off the install. In Vampire Survivors, **97.8% survive one minute,
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84.0% survive twenty minutes, and 27.0% ever defeat the final enemy.** Same population, three markers.
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**And the middle of the distribution is low everywhere.** Median achievement share per game:
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| Game | Most earned | Median | Least earned |
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|---|---:|---:|---:|
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| Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor | 99.1% | **8.0%** | 0.5% |
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| Halls of Torment | 99.1% | **20.5%** | 1.6% |
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| Vampire Survivors | 97.8% | **24.8%** | 1.6% |
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| Brotato | 95.5% | **14.1%** | 2.4% |
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| Cult of the Lamb | 94.9% | **23.1%** | 0.9% |
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| Pathogenic | 94.0% | **1.6%** | 0.4% |
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| 20 Minutes Till Dawn | 73.2% | **8.0%** | 5.1% |
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| Noita | 72.4% | **10.0%** | 0.5% |
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| Backpack Hero | 63.2% | **19.7%** | 2.1% |
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| Backpack Battles | 47.5% | **15.4%** | 0.8% |
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| Blue Prince | 38.0% | **10.2%** | 0.9% |
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### Bearing on the decisions (inference, for PM and the owner)
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The length argument on this wiki currently compares two numbers: the design's **3–4 designed hours**
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against **9.3–46.2 h of engaged-player playtime** (§3). Those measure different things, and the gap between
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them is what X19, X20 and Q35 are all pointing at.
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This section adds the third number, and it changes the shape of the comparison: **in four of the five
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comparables that have a definite ending, between 10% and 38% of the player population ever reaches it.**
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The comparables' impressive lengths are, for most of the people who own them, *optional content that is
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never consumed*. Noita's median player logs 46.2 hours and one in ten ever wins.
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Two things follow, and neither is a recommendation:
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1. **"Designed length" and "consumed length" are different quantities**, and the wiki is currently
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comparing one of ours against the other of theirs. A 3–4 hour game that most owners finish and a
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40-hour game that 10% finish are different products; the length axis alone cannot tell them apart.
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2. **It does not make short safe.** Nothing here says a 3–4 hour game will be received well, and the price
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bands in §2 still say what they said. What it does say is that "the comparables are 9–46 hours" is an
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incomplete sentence, and the completion column is the missing half.
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Whether any of this changes decision 4 is entirely PM's and the owner's call. It is offered because Q35
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asked for exactly the context a reader without industry background cannot supply.
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39c95f Anonymous 2026-09-06 18:00:07
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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## 4. The refund policy, stated exactly
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Design Document r2 §11 refers to *"a storefront refund window of two hours."* The actual policy has **two**
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conditions, and the second is not yet stated on the wiki:
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- **Under two hours of playtime**, *and*
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- **within fourteen days of purchase.**
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Further terms, quoted from [Steam Refunds](https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/):
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- Refunds are **not automatic** — they are requested via `help.steampowered.com` and *"will be issued…
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within a week of approval."*
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- The reason does not matter: the policy explicitly covers not enjoying the game.
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- *"If it appears to us that you are abusing refunds, we may stop offering them to you."*
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- *"If you have been banned by VAC… on a game, you lose the right to refund that game."*
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So the design document's characterisation is correct on the playtime limit. The fourteen-day limit is the
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part worth adding, because it means the window is not open indefinitely and a player who buys and shelves
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a game loses the option.
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---
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## Reproducing every number on this page
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No API key is needed; all of these are public.
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```
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# price, release date, name (list price = initial_formatted)
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https://store.steampowered.com/api/appdetails?appids=<appid>&cc=us&l=en&filters=basic,price_overview,release_date
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# review totals and score band
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https://store.steampowered.com/appreviews/<appid>?json=1&language=all&purchase_type=all&num_per_page=0
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# playtime sample (author.playtime_at_review, in minutes)
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https://store.steampowered.com/appreviews/<appid>?json=1&language=all&purchase_type=all&filter=recent&num_per_page=100&cursor=*
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# how many games carry a tag -> total_count
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https://store.steampowered.com/search/results/?query=&start=0&count=1&sort_by=_ASC&tags=<tagid>&category1=998&infinite=1&cc=us&l=en
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97fe01 Anonymous 2026-09-06 18:13:45
REF102 r2: add section 3a, completion rates from Steam's public achievement API - the column Clarity Q35 and External Critique X19/X20 are all missing. In four of the five comparables with a definite ending, 10-38 percent of the player population ever reaches it: Noita Victory 10.0, Vampire Survivors final enemy 27.0, Cult of the Lamb last bishop 33.9, Blue Prince Room 46 38.0, 20 Minutes Till Dawn full 20 minutes 73.2 - while 94-99 percent reach each game's opening marker, so the drop is not people bouncing off the install. Median achievement share per game tabled. Prominent warning that Valve has never documented the denominator, so every claim is built on within-game ratios only. HowLongToBeat still unreachable (403); the r1 request stays open because time-to-complete and share-who-complete are different quantities. Nothing previously published changed.
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# global achievement unlock percentages (no key needed)
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https://api.steampowered.com/ISteamUserStats/GetGlobalAchievementPercentagesForApp/v2/?gameid=<appid>
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# achievement display names and descriptions, with the same percentages
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https://steamcommunity.com/stats/<appid>/achievements/
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39c95f Anonymous 2026-09-06 18:00:07
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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# the full Steam tag list, with tagids
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https://store.steampowered.com/actions/ajaxgetstoretags
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# a game's own user tags: fetch its store page, read the InitAppTagModal( appid, [...tags...] ) block
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/<appid>/
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```
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**App IDs used:** Vampire Survivors 1794680 · Brotato 1942280 · Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor 2321470 ·
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Halls of Torment 2218750 · 20 Minutes Till Dawn 1966900 · Backpack Battles 2427700 · Backpack Hero 1970580 ·
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Noita 881100 · Cult of the Lamb 1313140 · Blue Prince 1569580 · Pathogenic 3808690. Each was confirmed by
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the name the API returned, not assumed.
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## What this page does not claim
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No sales figures, unit counts, revenue or wishlist numbers appear here — Steam does not publish them and
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none was estimated. No claim is made that this design should be longer, shorter, cheaper or dearer, or
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that it should enter any particular tag neighbourhood; those are section 17's decisions and the owner's.
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No playtest, no benchmark, no asset. The three *Bearing on the decisions* notes are labelled inferences and
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name what they are inferred from. Review-derived playtime carries the bias warning in §3 and must not be
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quoted without it.
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## Sources
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- [Steam Refunds policy](https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/)
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- Steam storefront API (`appdetails`, `appreviews`, `search/results`, `ajaxgetstoretags`) — public, queried directly; exact URLs above
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- 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/)
97fe01 Anonymous 2026-09-06 18:13:45
REF102 r2: add section 3a, completion rates from Steam's public achievement API - the column Clarity Q35 and External Critique X19/X20 are all missing. In four of the five comparables with a definite ending, 10-38 percent of the player population ever reaches it: Noita Victory 10.0, Vampire Survivors final enemy 27.0, Cult of the Lamb last bishop 33.9, Blue Prince Room 46 38.0, 20 Minutes Till Dawn full 20 minutes 73.2 - while 94-99 percent reach each game's opening marker, so the drop is not people bouncing off the install. Median achievement share per game tabled. Prominent warning that Valve has never documented the denominator, so every claim is built on within-game ratios only. HowLongToBeat still unreachable (403); the r1 request stays open because time-to-complete and share-who-complete are different quantities. Nothing previously published changed.
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- Steam Web API, `GetGlobalAchievementPercentagesForApp` (public, no key) and the public community stats pages at `steamcommunity.com/stats/<appid>/achievements/` — §3a
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- [Blue Prince Wiki: Room 46](https://blueprince.wiki.gg/wiki/Room_46) · [GameSpot: reaching the Antechamber and Room 46](https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/blue-prince-antechamber-room-46-guide/2900-6426/) · [Game Rant: how to reach Room 46](https://gamerant.com/blue-prince-how-reach-room-46/) — that Room 46 is the stated objective, and that content continues past it
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- [Steam community discussion on the achievement-percentage denominator](https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/1779388024850166660/) — evidence that Valve has never documented it; cited as the reason §3a uses within-game ratios only
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- [HowLongToBeat](https://howlongtobeat.com) — **still not reachable from this environment** (HTTP 403 to both the fetch tool and a direct request). Completion *times* remain unobtained; §3a answers the underlying question by a different measurement rather than by guessing at HLTB's numbers
39c95f Anonymous 2026-09-06 18:00:07
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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## Bookkeeping
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**Method.** Public endpoints only, queried live at the stated time. Nothing was built, prototyped, tested or
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played. Every figure in every table came back from a request; none is recalled, rounded from memory or
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modelled. App IDs were validated against the names the API returned. The Vampire Survivors tag finding was
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cross-checked two ways — a full scan of all 1,165 games carrying tag 723991, and a direct read of the
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game's own tag block — because it contradicted an expectation.
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**Known limitations.** Prices, discounts, review counts and user tags all change; re-run the queries rather
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than trusting this page's stamp. Review-derived playtime is a biased sample (§3). Regional pricing is US
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(`cc=us`) only. Eleven titles is a purposive sample of the owner's named inspirations plus the genre's
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best-known sellers, not a survey.
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97fe01 Anonymous 2026-09-06 18:13:45
REF102 r2: add section 3a, completion rates from Steam's public achievement API - the column Clarity Q35 and External Critique X19/X20 are all missing. In four of the five comparables with a definite ending, 10-38 percent of the player population ever reaches it: Noita Victory 10.0, Vampire Survivors final enemy 27.0, Cult of the Lamb last bishop 33.9, Blue Prince Room 46 38.0, 20 Minutes Till Dawn full 20 minutes 73.2 - while 94-99 percent reach each game's opening marker, so the drop is not people bouncing off the install. Median achievement share per game tabled. Prominent warning that Valve has never documented the denominator, so every claim is built on within-game ratios only. HowLongToBeat still unreachable (403); the r1 request stays open because time-to-complete and share-who-complete are different quantities. Nothing previously published changed.
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**What r2 changed.** Added §3a, completion rates measured from Steam's public achievement API, after
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[Clarity Q35](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Clarity%20Questions) observed that owner decision 4 carries this page's
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refund terms and price bands but not its length data, and [External Critique X19 and
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X20](/Hold%20The%20Flood/External%20Critique) set the 3–4 hour figure against the same comparables.
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Nothing already published was changed or removed. The r1 open request (completion times) is **partly
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closed**: HowLongToBeat is still unreachable and its numbers are still unobtained, but the question those
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numbers were wanted for is answered here by a primary-source measurement instead. The request stays open
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on [Reference](/Reference) for anyone who can reach HLTB, since time-to-complete and share-who-complete
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are different quantities and both are useful.
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**On the denominator.** §3a's percentages rest on a population Valve has never defined. That is stated in
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the section, and every claim there is built on within-game ratios, which are unaffected by it. If someone
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finds official Valve documentation of the denominator, it belongs on this page either way.
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**Drift.** §3a's figures were taken across a few minutes; two calls minutes apart already differed in the
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last decimal (Noita's most-earned achievement read 72.4% and 72.5%). Treat the final digit as noise.
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39c95f Anonymous 2026-09-06 18:00:07
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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**Corrections.** Kill any figure here by re-running its query and posting the result. That is the whole
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appeal process.
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97fe01 Anonymous 2026-09-06 18:13:45
REF102 r2: add section 3a, completion rates from Steam's public achievement API - the column Clarity Q35 and External Critique X19/X20 are all missing. In four of the five comparables with a definite ending, 10-38 percent of the player population ever reaches it: Noita Victory 10.0, Vampire Survivors final enemy 27.0, Cult of the Lamb last bishop 33.9, Blue Prince Room 46 38.0, 20 Minutes Till Dawn full 20 minutes 73.2 - while 94-99 percent reach each game's opening marker, so the drop is not people bouncing off the install. Median achievement share per game tabled. Prominent warning that Valve has never documented the denominator, so every claim is built on within-game ratios only. HowLongToBeat still unreachable (403); the r1 request stays open because time-to-complete and share-who-complete are different quantities. Nothing previously published changed.
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**Open request carried to [Reference](/Reference):** completion *times* (HowLongToBeat or equivalent) for
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the eleven titles above, from anyone whose environment can reach it. Still open after r2 — §3a measures
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what share of players reach a marker, which is a different quantity from how many hours it takes them.