How Tavern Games Are Quietly Printing Money on Steam
Nearly half of the released tavern games I found have crossed $500k. I dug into the data and the marketing playbooks behind them.
The Over Powered Game Marketing newsletter is written by game marketing strategist & co-founder of Frostbloom Jordan Brown, and is a regular breakdown of the tactics, data, and playbooks indie devs need to stand out in a crowded market.
Introduction
Sometimes I see a niche trend in games and suddenly get really curious about how its performing and how to market to that subgenre. That same random urge is what lead to my recent article on productivity games. This time around i’ve been obsessing over Tavern Games 🍻
By Tavern Games I’m referring to games that largely take place in a medieval tavern or inn. This is less a subgenre and more a theme or setting, which prompted its own set of questions. Genres and subgenres share audiences that have specific expectations and communities, so often the same marketing strategies are used for games in similar genres. But what about games that share the same vibe, setting or environment? That is one of many questions I set out to answer as I collected data on Tavern Games no one asked for.
That said in the case studies section I dive into the marketing strategies of a few successful tavern games so I’m sure you’ll learn something even if you aren’t pining to drown in ale at a medieval tavern.
Frostbloom
Before diving into the article a few updates on how things are going over at Frostbloom!
We’re heading to Nordic Game, feel free to shoot me a DM on Linkedin if you want to meetup.
We’re actively reviewing pitch decks and will commit to signing games soon, so submit your pitch deck here if you’re interested in publishing or book a meeting if you’re curious how we work.
Self Publishing Tools
A significant part of what we do is supporting developers going the self publishing route. Here’s a few ways we’re doing that at the moment:
Free: Press Kit Template
It’s pretty awesome seeing some great press kits made with our template, like this one for Arc of Icarus.
Free: Steam Page Blueprint
If you’re interested in best practices for a high converting Steam page this ones for you. I’m still working on this one so it’s only a waitlist you can join for now, but it will be sent out sometime in the next two weeks!
Waitlist: Indie Visibility Playbook
Maybe its overly ambitious but i’m attempting to package everything i’ve learned about games marketing into an educational course that also includes notion templates and other tools we’re actively using for the games we work with. Join the waitlist to be notified when it releases, get a 25% discount at launch, and most importantly be a source of input as I continue to build the course!
Data Collection
This was not the most scientific data collection as I couldn’t just search by the “Tavern” tag and pull those games from Steam, so please keep in mind its not an exhaustive list of tavern themed games. I pulled data on a total of 38 Tavern games that fit the following criteria:
Most the gameplay takes place in a medieval or fantasy themed tavern or inn.
Filtered out games that didn’t seem like serious contenders
Filtered out NSFW games (there’s a ton of tavern themed NSWF games btw)
You can view the full data on all 38 games in this google sheet.
All data was collected in early May 2026 from Steam and Gamalytic. Gamalytic uses third party estimates so take the data with a grain of salt.
Quick Tavern Stats 🍻
Sales
16/22 of the released games made over $10k
12/22 of the released games made over $100k
7/22 of the release games made over $1 million
Clearly i’m not the only one who enjoys a nice fantasy tavern.
Release Dates
31/38 of games on the list are 3 years or newer (including unreleased)
It’s possible I missed some of the older ones but I think does show there is an uptake in these kind of games and why I noticed the trend.
Price
Median Price: $14.99
Average Price: $14.50
Most Common Genre Tags
Simulation
Management
Fantasy
Adventure
Building
Cooking
Strategy
Resource Management
Economy
RPG
It’s in a slightly different order, but nearly the same for the unreleased titles.
Categorized Niches
Cozy management (Travellers Rest, Tavern Master)
Co-op chaos / friend-slop (Bronzebeard’s, Restaurats, Ale & Tale, Innchanted)
Narrative / visual novel (Tavern Talk)
Dark / horror twist (Ravenous Devils)
Strategy hybrid (Tabletop Tavern, Tavern Keeper, Crossroads Inn 2)
Mini Case Studies
While these games share the same theme they have different gameplay and twists on how they use the tavern setting, so I did a few different case studies on successful titles to see how they got in front of their players.
Bronzebeard’s Tavern
Game Description: Bronzebeard's Tavern is a goofy and playful restaurant manager sim where 1-8 players can work as a team with multiplayer co-op. Fulfill a number of different roles, serve a diverse range of customers and cook up delicious dwarven cuisine.
Bronzebeard’s Tavern was brought to life by a 5 person team (The Mermaid MenZ) and originally created as a student project. The craziest thing about this game is that they had the most copies sold in my data list and yet an estimated less than 100 wishlists at launch. That’s a pretty crazy sentence to write, but it makes sense in context. This was largely for 5 reasons:
Bronzebeard Tavern is free
They barely did any marketing before release
They made a really fun game
It was co-op
They got huge creator coverage near launch
The fact that it was both free and co-op was a massive advantage. Combine that with the fact that it’s a genuinely fun game & an influencer video with over 1 million views and you have a recipe for success.
Following the surge of players after launch i’m betting they had an “oh shit” moment and doubled down on the game. After the initial release in Dec 2023 they shipped paid DLCs and tons of free updates.
The Mermaid MenZ artists did a fantastic job bringing lots of personality to their marketing. Check out their steam page updates and you’ll see custom artwork in nearly every major post.
In January 2025 they shipped a fun event for players titled the “Goblin Takeover” and used it to drop hints about the announcement of Bronze Beard’s Tavern 2. Since announcing Bronze Beard Tavern 2 they’ve amassed over an estimated 14k wishlists!
Bronzebeard’s Tavern 2 has a massive advantage it gets to take advantage of by cross promoting from their 1st game and bringing that audience to their 2nd game. Considering the statistical likelihood of your first game being a commercial failure, it may not be a bad idea to follow in their footsteps and release it for free and capitalize on that audience in your next game!
Restaurats
Game Description: Lead a medieval restaurant with a team of rats like you! Cook the food, throw it at the guests, wipe the drinks under the skeletons! Become a legendary rat chef, proving to orcs and vampires that the most delicious bloody meat is served in your restaurant!
Developed by toR Studio and published by Polden Publishing, Restaurats exploded onto the scene generating over $1 million in 2 months. I’ve got a lot of respect for Polden Publishing, they have a very interesting process of testing games they sign and their CEO is documenting most of it on his LinkedIn. Before signing games they test it’s market appeal by announcing the game and paying influencers with a focus on vertical short form content (Tiktok, YT shorts, Instagram Reels). If the coverage converts well to wishlists than they sign and further invest into the game.
You can see this in action on their wishlist graph. Polden signed Restaurats sometime around May or June 2025, at which point their wishlists start climbing significantly. From there they launched the demo in July 2025 followed by joining Next Fest in October 2025 and dropping their release date reveal shortly after. Then they shipped the game and focused on post launch content updates. Some other cool marketing strategies they used:
Twitch integration to turn viewers into in-game customers.
Post launch roadmap.
Everyone going into Early Access knows to create a roadmap but I would love to see more 1.0 games create roadmaps near release. It sets clear expectations with your players and very likely leads to higher purchase intent since they know they’re buying a game that will continue to get updates.
Video contest that rewarded players & content creators with game keys and other rewards.
Polden Publishing had 5 demos in Steam Next Fest so there was almost certainly some cross promotion going on.
Celebrating players and creators from a specific region.
Ale & Tale Tavern
Game Description: Get ready for a thrilling mix of genres: a cooperative, first-person, open-world fantasy tavern simulator, action, fishing, hunting, exploration, and completing fun and diverse quests. And, of course, COOKING! Play with friends, feed and quench the thirst of the entire world!
Developed by 4 person team Scienart Games and published by GrabTheGames, Ale & Tale Tavern has generated an estimated $7 million since launch.
Ale & Tale utilized the free prequel strategy by releasing Ale & Tale First Pints in June 2024. If you don’t know what the free prequel strategy is, the idea was to release a free version of your “main” game that would then push traffic and generate wishlists for your main game while it’s still in development. I say “was” because this strategy has since been made redundant by the great demo update. As you can see in the wishlist graph the prequel strategy worked great for them!
Besides the prequel strategy they did the standard press & creator outreach nearing launch and a healthy amount of post launch updates. I also think their Steam Trading cards & fun stats post were both great ideas that fit the vibe of their game.
What should I write about next?
OP Game Marketing is now releasing on a weekly schedule! I’ll continue to do case studies and data deep dives, but if you’re curious about a specific topic let me know and i’ll do an article on it.
Thanks for reading, i’m gonna go listen to the LOTR soundtrack and manage my medieval tavern now.
Great read. I’m also one of those that has a soft spot for tavern themed games. I’m sure the popularity of LOTR and D&D has a lot to do with their success