Before building a database for one kind of game, we looked at others that had tried. Some single-genre databases fill up quickly and then stop. One keeps changing every day. The difference we found has less to do with design than with who keeps the database up to date, and whether anything on it changes often enough to give people a reason to come back. This note sets out what we found, what we could and couldn’t verify, and how it shapes CoopGamesDB.
In short
- MetroidvaniaDB holds 266 games. The newest was added on 8 March 2025. BoomerShooterDB holds 247; the newest was added on 27 March 2025.
- Most of their games arrived in a few large batches in 2024, followed by a handful more.
- incrementaldb, a database of incremental games, shows a steady stream of game updates. Updates for games on Steam arrive automatically, and developers can verify that they own their game.
- Our reading: a catalogue built once depends on its founders’ time. A feed maintained by developers depends on many people with their own reason to post.
How we checked
We first looked at these sites on 1 October 2026 and checked the key facts again on 2 October 2026.
For MetroidvaniaDB and BoomerShooterDB, we read the public database their own pages load game data from. Each game record carries an upload date, and the database records when each entry was last changed. For incrementaldb, we read its updates page, its page for developers about automatic updates and a site update post. We created no accounts and submitted nothing.
Findings
Two databases that filled up and stopped
MetroidvaniaDB and BoomerShooterDB are run by the same company, Fictional Games, LLC, as both sites’ footers show. They share a design and features: tag browsing, user lists, a “Contribute” page for adding games, a contributor leaderboard, a monthly newsletter, and advertising for developers (native and banner ad spots, launch packages, discounts for indie developers).
Their game records tell a clear story:
| MetroidvaniaDB | BoomerShooterDB | |
|---|---|---|
| Games | 266 | 247 |
| Newest game added | 8 March 2025 | 27 March 2025 |
| How games arrived | 259 in April and September–November 2024, then 6 more (one record has no date) | 236 in November 2024, then 11 more |
| Latest change to any game record | 16 December 2025 | 4 August 2025 |
The contributor leaderboard, which lists users of both sites, points the same way. The top contributor has 102 contributions, the next two have 16 and 7, and everyone else has between 0 and 3.
Both sites are online and their pages work. What stopped is the arrival of new games. A genre database that adds nothing new gives its visitors little reason to return, and gives developers little reason to send their games.
One database that keeps moving
incrementaldb works differently. Its home page has tabs for new, hot, updated, best new and on-sale games, and a separate updates page lists patch notes and announcements from many games. The newest entries were about half a day old when we looked.
Two mechanisms keep that page full without the owner doing it by hand:
- Updates arrive by themselves. According to its developer page, when a developer posts an update on Steam, it appears on incrementaldb within 24 hours. Developers whose games are not on Steam can publish a small updates file that the site checks once a day.
- Developers own their pages. Since a site update (version 0.29), developers can verify that they own a game, and their replies in reviews and comments carry a developer badge.
What we take from it
A catalogue is a snapshot. Somebody has to keep adding games and correcting old ones, and on a small site that somebody is usually the founder. When the founder gets busy, the catalogue can stop, and nothing on the site tells a returning visitor that anything has changed.
A feed works the other way. Each developer who posts an update has a reason to do it: they want players to see it. The site’s job is to make that easy and to keep the quality up.
What we do about it
- A feed, not just a list. Our home page runs a feed of new games, updates, demos, playtests and sales.
- Developers keep their own pages. Developers submit their games and edit their pages. A person reviews each new game before it goes live.
- Updates without extra work. For games with a Steam or itch.io page, we import Steam announcements and itch.io devlogs once a day, and prices of games on Steam are refreshed daily, so a new discount shows up as a sale.
- We measure returns. We judge the site by returning visitors before pageviews, because a database people visit once is the failure this note describes.
Here are the games on CoopGamesDB that changed most recently:
What we couldn’t verify
- Traffic. Our 1 October note used third-party traffic estimates for all three sites. Those tools are least reliable for small sites, and we did not re-check them, so we don’t repeat them here.
- Why the two databases stopped. The data shows when games stopped arriving, not why. A pause, a change of priorities or a plan to return would all look the same from outside.
- The dates themselves. We rely on the upload dates stored in each record; one MetroidvaniaDB record has none.
- Where incrementaldb’s visitors come from. Its activity is visible; how people find it is not.
- Whether the patterns hold for co-op. We expect players to look for a co-op game every few weeks, not every day. A feed may bring them back less often than it brings back players of incremental games. We will know from our own returning-visitor numbers.
