Steam Marketing Data – Store Page Text from 1,000 Popular Games

This dataset contains Steam store page marketing text and associated metadata from 1,000 distinct games, ordered by organic visibility / relevance at the time of collection – December 6th 2023. The dataset includes the core public-facing marketing sections used to describe and promote games on Steam, supporting research on platform discourse, player-oriented value claims, and how temporal expectations are communicated in contemporary game advertising.<b>Included fields:</b><br>steam_appid; name; short_description; about_the_game; detailed_description; reviews (store page section); supported_languages; developers; publishers; genres; categories; release_date; is_free; required_age; price_overview (where available); header_image; platforms; recommendations; achievements (where available).<br>This dataset provides a broader sampling frame for examining how developers and publishers communicate value, commitment, and expected time investment through platform marketing. It is suitable for qualitative coding, descriptive analysis of platform-facing metadata, and computational text analysis of store page language.<br><br><b>Relationship to associated publication:</b><br>The DiGRA ’25 paper <i>Selling Time: Time-Centric Language in Video Game Marketing on Steam</i> used this dataset to examine how developers and publishers frame player time through store page marketing – that is, how temporal language is used to communicate value, session expectations, ongoing support, and anticipated longevity. The study drew on three primary store page sections represented in this repository: the Short Description, Reviews, and About the Game text.<br>Using an abductive, multi-phase process, the paper developed a time-centric keyword filter and applied it to organise the marketing text for thematic analysis. Manual review was then used to retain only instances that explicitly communicated an impact on player time or playtime. The analysis resulted in six themes that categorised time-centric marketing across the dataset: Value Proposition, Temporal Highlights, Active Support, Structured Sessions, Anticipated Play, and Legacy Engagement.This larger repository is designed to complement that study by providing the underlying 1,000-game marketing data for replication or extension in future qualitative and mixed-method work on how time is positioned as a commercial and experiential promise in platform-based game promotion.