The Quiet, Never-Ending Growth of Wallpaper Engine
One "game's" quiet ascent from a few thousand users to one of the most played titles on Steam.
If you don’t know, Wallpaper Engine is a paid Steam application where you can download community made animated (AKA live) wallpapers. For those of who are familiar with it, I ask you to think about the last time you paid attention to it was.
For me, I purchased it back in March 2018 while it was still in early access. It was mostly a novelty purchase. Cool for a while, but I’d always end up turning it off eventually. How often do you really look at your desktop anyway? To be honest I haven’t put much thought into it since. Every once in a while I’ll see it on Steam Charts, but that was about it.
Back then the game had around 7,000 average players, peaking in at about 13,000. Not bad by any means. In 2019, the game had grown to about 10,000 average players. In 2020, it made a massive jump to 20 and then 30 thousand. It’s not hard to imagine why. Everyone locked inside because of the pandemic and a really beautiful picturesque landscape really can help.
The thing is, it hasn’t stopped growing. In 2021, the average player count hit 40,000 with a rare peak over 100,000. And now in 2022, the game sees an average player count of over 60,000 at any given moment with routine peaks above 100k.
In fact, Wallpaper Engine hit an all time peak of 116,398 just in the last 30 days.
Since January 2019, the game has only had 16 of 46 months where the average user count has declined and only three of those were by more than 10%.
Few other games can boast consistent growth like that. I checked major titles like Counter-Strike: GO, Dota 2, Grand Theft Auto V, Destiny 2, Warframe, Dead by Daylight, and Final Fantasy XIV. None have had more months of growth
The game costs $3.99, same as it did in early access. From what SteamDB says, it’s only ever gone on sale once at a 10% discount. Rather astonishing given the amount of time it’s been available. But when a program is cheap and unique, I suppose you don’t need to lean on sales to rejuvenate your userbase.
The Top Five this week were: Modern Warfare II, Sonic Frontiers, CS: GO, Lost Ark, and Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. Full list here.
Five New Games 🆕
Tactics Ogre: Reborn (#7)
Remakes are popular right now. So are remakes of remakes apparently. So if you missed both 1995’s Tactics Ogre and 2010’s Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, you’ve got another shot with Reborn. I’ve heard it runs really well on Steam Deck if you’ve got one of those.
Shadows Over Loathing (#23)
Listen. I’ve never played West of Loathing, but you’ll know if this game is for you just by looking at the Steam screenshots. It’s got stick figures, jokes, gags, and goofs.
Among Us VR (#48)
Now you can be the amongus. Is that how you spell it? Is that something the kids say?
It’s Among Us, but in VR. Be forewarned, however, it’s got proximity chat and apparently lots of racist kids.
Astro Colony (#85)
I feel like I’m repeating myself week after week here. Okay. Here’s Astro Colony:
Space game. ✅
Procedurally generated. ✅
Automation game (it’s Factorio). ✅
Voxel planets. ✅
Disasters? I see black holes, asteroids, and lightning. ✅
I don’t even like factory games, but this sounds cool.
A Little to the Left (#89)
A puzzle game about cleaning up and organizing things. It’s like Unpacking, but in puzzle game form.
The Movers 🆙
Hmm. Wonder why? Sale, sale, update, sale, sale.
+83 Dying Light 2 Stay Human
+82 Sid Meier’s Civilization VI
+74 Halo Infinite
+71 Monster Hunter Rise
+55 Cities: Skylines
In Danger ⚡
After two straight years of being in the top 100, Stellaris has dropped off of the charts. Pour one out for our 4x friend. (For what it’s worth, Cult of the Lamb and Plate Up! also fell off)
PUBG: Battlegrounds (#99) - 18 Weeks
Hunt: Showdown (#90) - 19 Weeks
Sea of Thieves (#78) - 128 Weeks
Total War: Warhammer III (#75) - 16 Weeks
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege (#73) - 365 Weeks
Longest Lasting ⌛
Woof. Siege is currently towards the bottom of the list after seven years of being in the top 100.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (536 Weeks)
Warframe (503 Weeks)
Grand Theft Auto V (409 Weeks)
The Elder Scrolls Online (408 Weeks)
Rust (386 Weeks)
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege (365 Weeks)
Final Fantasy XIV Online (311 Weeks)
Dead by Daylight (288 Weeks)
Destiny 2 (175 Weeks)
Red Dead Redemption 2 (154 Weeks)
The Quiet, Never-Ending Growth of Wallpaper Engine
Someone has sent in an email pointing out this Kotaku article about how Wallpaper Engine is used in China: https://kotaku.com/steam-porn-wallpaper-app-chinese-censors-anime-1849334942