There are now over 50,000 games on Steam. The new tool, developed by Level Up Labs co-founder Lars Doucet in collaboration with SteamDB, allows you to track engines and technologies used in all of these titles.
Doucet announced the launch of the new tech on August 6. Its rules are also published on GitHub.
Here is how the new tool actually works. With every app on Steam associated with a number of file depots, SteamDB runs special scripts over all the filenames in all of the depots. Based on this information and the already existing game engine data, the service links games to specific technologies.
Heya! I am collaborating with @SteamDB to automatically detect game engines & tech used in all the games on Steam.
Here’s a beta link:https://t.co/D3jzEYOKju
Here’s the Github for our detection script:https://t.co/V1yj99DIYN
Report mistakes here:https://t.co/VNvHaNkj4A
— Lars “Totally Texas” Doucet (@larsiusprime) August 6, 2021
It comes as no surprise that Unity sits on top of the list, with 29,226 titles made on it. It also became the most popular game engine among the top 50 best titles on Steam, according to user reviews. Unity is followed by Unreal (7,405 games), GameMaker (2,585), RPGMaker (1,942), and Construct. The new tool also allows you to see all games made on specific engines.
According to Doucet, the tool still can’t detect engines that it doesn’t have rules for. It also can’t detect everything due to false-negative results. “This will never be perfect, do not expect it to be perfect,” Doucet said.
On top of that, the new tool also detects other technologies used in Steam games, including SDKs, emulators, and anticheats.
Last year, Lars Doucet introduced website GameDataCrunch that collects and contextualizes data about games on Steam.