This week's list of Steam's top-selling games brought with it a surprise inclusion. In the second-ranked position is a game few could have predicted. That game is Subverse, a game newly launched into Early Access that mixes SHMUP action and turn-based tactical combat. But Subverse's main attraction, at least on paper, is that it's an adults-only product. As such, Steam limits who can even view Subverse's profile, making the game's popularity all the more impressive.
As noted, Subverse climbed all the way up to the second position in Steam's weekly top-sellers list, as measured by revenue. The one game Subverse wasn't able to overtake was Valheim, which is averaging over a million sales a week. Yet Subverse did manage to outperform several other Steam products. Those include Valve's own Index VR Kit, Outriders pre-purchases, and even the heavily discounted Half-Life: Alyx. In other words, this wasn't a slow week on Steam; Subverse's high ranking was earned.
Due to it being registered as an adults-only product on Steam, Subverse faced heavy restrictions with regards to how it could be viewed. To start, it's not accessible via typical web searching. The profile will appear in a Google search, but the resulting page will say, "Oops, sorry! An error was encountered while processing your request: You must login to see this content." Even logging in, whether via browser or Steam itself, doesn't unlock the game's profile, however. Users also have to opt-in seeing mature content, and that's only after Steam's confirmed the account belongs to someone 18+.
Subverse overcame these challenges by, at least according to its Steam profile, offering exactly the kind of game that buyers wanted. Subverse currently has 4,400 reviews and they are "Very Positive" on average. If there is significant criticism of the game among its reviews, it's that there's too much gameplay focus and not enough sexually explicit content. Also worth considering is that Subverse retails for $30, which means it's bringing in more revenue-per-sale than other games on Steam's top-sellers list.
To be clear, Subverse much is a sexually explicit game. Its Steam profile states in a Mature Content Description that the game features cinematic sex scenes. The developers call themselves "apex perverts" that built Subverse "from the ground up for the discerning adult."
Subverse isn't the first adults-only game to be included in Steam's top-sellers chart, despite the program only going live in Steam in December this last year. HuniePop 2: Double Date earned that distinction when it launched in mid-February. Subverse, however, is the highest-ranked adults-only game to be on the chart. HuniePop 2: Double Date only reached seventh.
Subverse is available in Early Access on Steam.