Fishing games on Steam by year: a younger market
Contents
How to Fish shipped on 20 August 2026 and in eleven days collected more reviews than its entire release cohort combined. We broke down all 596 games in the Fishing-tagged Steam catalogue by release year — and the genre turns out to be far more crowded now than it has ever been.
The catalogue by year
| Release year | Games | Median reviews | Median positive |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 104 | 55.5 | 86 % |
| 2025 | 144 | 59.5 | 86 % |
| 2024 | 103 | 52 | 81 % |
| 2023 | 68 | 102.5 | 83 % |
| 2022 | 41 | 125 | 79 % |
| 2021 | 44 | 163 | 81 % |
| 2020 | 29 | 97 | 82 % |
| 2019 | 13 | 376 | 80 % |
| 2018 | 22 | 150 | 77.5 % |
| 2017 | 10 | 435 | 78.5 % |
| 2016 | 10 | 351 | 76 % |
| 2015 | 3 | 1,496 | 88 % |
| 2014 | 4 | 341.5 | 66 % |
| 2013 | 1 | 3,525 | 96 % |
Catalogue snapshot from 31 August 2026. The year comes from the release date on the Steam card; no game in the catalogue lacked one, so all 596 are placed.
Two thirds of the catalogue is under three years old
419 of 596 games (70.3 %) shipped in 2023-2026. The years 2025 and 2026 alone account for 248 games, 41.6 % of the whole catalogue. For comparison, the entire 2013-2019 stretch contributes just 63 games.
That does not mean nobody made fishing games before 2020. It means far more of them are being made now, and that few old ones remain in the live Steam catalogue.
More games, fewer reviews each
The median review count in the 2026 cohort is 55.5. In the 2017 cohort it is 435 — a 7.84× difference.
Part of that is simply time: a 2017 game has been collecting reviews for nine years, a 2026 game for at most eight months. But 2019 (376) and 2018 (150) are also far above 2024 (52), and only five or six years separate them. Together with the drop from 2023 (102.5) to 2024 (52) at nearly identical game counts, the picture is consistent: there is less attention per game in this genre than there used to be.
How to Fish against its own cohort
How to Fish is one of the 104 games from 2026 in this catalogue. Its 15,660 reviews are 282.2× the median of its own cohort (55.5).
Half of the fishing games released this year have fewer than 56 reviews. How to Fish collected more in eleven days than any of them managed all year.
Scores went the other way
The median positive share in the 2025 and 2026 cohorts is 86 %, against 76-78.5 % in the 2016-2018 cohorts. More new games, and on average better rated ones.
There are several possible explanations and we do not know which is right. Small modern games have very small samples, where a handful of positive reviews immediately produces a high percentage. Player behaviour may also have changed. We are recording the number, not explaining it.
What we are not claiming
This is a catalogue, not a history of the genre. The list contains only games available on Steam as of 31 August 2026. A delisted 2014 game does not appear — so the older cohorts are made of survivors, and their medians are inflated by construction.
Small cohorts prove nothing. 2013 has one game, 2015 has three, 2014 has four. A median over one game is just that game.
Review counts are not global. The Steam tooltip counts only reviews written in your interface language, and only Steam purchases.
We did not compare sales. Reviews correlate with sales, but the ratio differs by genre and we did not measure it.
Frequently asked questions
How many fishing games ship on Steam each year?
In the Fishing-tagged catalogue: 144 games in 2025 and already 104 in an incomplete 2026. By comparison, 2017 has just 10.
What share of the catalogue is recent?
419 of 596 games (70.3 %) shipped in 2023-2026. The years 2025-2026 alone account for 248 games, or 41.6 %.
How many reviews does a typical new fishing game get?
The 2026 cohort median is 55.5 reviews. Half of this year's games have fewer.
How far ahead of its cohort is How to Fish?
282.2× on the median: 15,660 reviews against 55.5 for a typical 2026 game.
Why are the medians higher for older games?
Two reasons at once: they collected reviews for longer, and only the survivors are still listed. Delisted games are not counted at all.