150+ Developers Push to Define a New “Fake OS” Genre on Steam
A coordinated developer-led effort aims to formalize “Fake OS” games as a discoverable category on Steam through community tagging and a dedicated platform-wide event.
A group of more than 150 developers and publishers has come together to push for recognition of a new genre on Steam, centered around games that simulate operating systems, desktops, and digital interfaces. The proposed name is Fake OS.
The initiative, tied to a coordinated Steam event known as InterfaceX26, aims to establish “Fake OS” as an official tag, making it easier for players to discover games built around navigating fictional software environments.
They're even running a sale as well on Steam, so you can see the kinds of games they're talking about, which lasts until May 4.
The genre itself is not new, but it has historically lacked a clear classification. Titles like Her Story, Hypnospace Outlaw, and Simulacra feature a common design language, asking players to interact with in-game operating systems, files, and applications as part of the core gameplay loop. Despite this, they are often scattered across unrelated categories on Steam, limiting visibility and making discovery more difficult.
Here's how they're defining it:
"For this specific event we used "a major part of the game simulates an actual device and/or operating system (desktop, phone, browser, console, etc.) as a major gameplay mechanic" as the criterion. This should both match player expectations (seeing a lot of OS-themed UI, turning on a simulated machine, files and apps, crashes and glitches etc) but also allow for some fuzzyness around the edges and include a number of games that have these aspects as part of their game but not making up the whole game. We include games that let you control an alien TV, a game-making computer, a video game menu and a ton more fun and weird stuff that adds to the "core" of the genre."
- Event organizer, Alexander Zacherl
Rather than waiting for platform-level curation, developers are taking a bottom-up approach. The campaign encourages players to actively tag games with “Fake OS,” using coordinated timing and community participation to demonstrate demand. This mirrors previous efforts on Steam, where grassroots tagging campaigns have successfully led to the recognition of new categories.
At the center of the push is the idea that discoverability is increasingly tied to how games are categorized. As Steam’s ecosystem continues to expand, tags play a critical role in how titles are surfaced through recommendations, search, and algorithmic visibility. For games that exist between established genres, the absence of a clear label can significantly impact reach.
"In my mind, when this goes well, it lets the player do two things: a) They can fully import their learned skills from the world of actual devices and rely on the game having the same affordances. This makes them very accessible especially for non-gamers. And (b) it let's the developer do a lot of fun things around simulating OS- or device-behaviours "realistically" at time but then also break them at other times (lots of crashes and fourth wall breaks in a few games).
I think this is probably not very different from how genres emerged in the past. It is a messy and noisy process with some people doing the hard work of trying to define the core of a genre and communicate and pitch their definitions to others. But in the end the only thing that counts is that a larger group of players agrees that this specific set of words is useful to them. And, given that there is already well-established tag and multiple collections of "Fake OS" games on itch.io, I have the feeling that the same progress is already happening on Steam, and we're just helping it along."
- Event organizer, Alexander Zacherl
The InterfaceX26 event itself combines a week-long sale with a livestream showcase featuring dozens of titles, alongside a broader push to encourage players to engage with the tagging system. The goal is not just short-term visibility, but long-term recognition of a design space that has quietly grown over the past decade.
Whether the push results in official recognition remains to be seen, but the scale of the effort reflects a growing need for more granular and flexible categorization systems. As more games explore unconventional structures and hybrid formats, the ability to clearly define and surface those experiences becomes increasingly important.
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