How you rank Steam Workshop games changes everything depending on the metric. Rank by raw mod count and Garry's Mod, Cities: Skylines, and Planet Zoo top the list. Rank by total subscriptions and Garry's Mod and Wallpaper Engine lead. But there's a third, more revealing way to read the market: average demand per mod.
This is the number that tells you how hard it actually is to get attention in a given game's Workshop. A game with 140,000 mods and 1.5 billion subscriptions looks dominant — but if those subscriptions are spread thinly, most creators are fighting for crumbs. A game with 6,000 mods and 870 million subscriptions is the opposite: every single mod is, on average, a hit.
Here is what ModSignal's live dataset of over 5 million active Workshop mods across 139 games reveals about which games deliver the highest demand per mod.
How we measured demand density
We ranked games by average subscriptions per active mod — total subscriptions across all active Workshop items in a game, divided by the number of active items. This is the cleanest proxy for "how much demand exists per unit of supply." We restricted the ranking to games with at least 3,000 active mods and over 50 million total subscriptions, so the averages aren't distorted by a game with three megahit mods and nothing else.
The data comes from ModSignal's live PostgreSQL database, which continuously snapshots Steam Workshop items via the Steam Web API. All numbers are current as of August 2026.
The demand-per-mod leaderboard
| Game | Active Mods | Avg Subs per Mod | Avg Favs per Mod | Favs as % of Subs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wallpaper Engine | 6,000 | 145,228 | 10,904 | 7.5% |
| Unturned | 5,999 | 13,200 | 505 | 3.8% |
| The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim | 6,316 | 12,699 | 1,255 | 9.9% |
| Project Zomboid | 58,190 | 11,897 | 416 | 3.5% |
| Don't Starve Together | 25,255 | 11,571 | 430 | 3.7% |
| Garry's Mod | 139,965 | 10,761 | 660 | 6.1% |
| Darkest Dungeon | 8,313 | 10,164 | 638 | 6.3% |
| Teardown | 13,947 | 9,484 | 123 | 1.3% |
| Rivals of Aether | 12,168 | 9,380 | 294 | 3.1% |
| Cities: Skylines | 80,170 | 9,201 | 380 | 4.1% |
Wallpaper Engine is in a league of its own
The headline here is absurd: Wallpaper Engine averages 145,228 subscriptions per active mod — more than 10x the runner-up. That is not a small lead; it's a structural outlier. For context, the #2 game on the list, Unturned, averages 13,200 subs per mod. Wallpaper Engine's average is greater than the entire catalog of most games on Steam.
Why? A few factors compound:
- Wallpaper Engine is itself a mod-enabling tool. Its Workshop isn't a game content addon ecosystem; it's a marketplace for animated wallpapers. The "mods" are the product — every wallpaper is its own item, and users subscribe to them directly. There's no barrier of "is this compatible with my save?"
- Low supply, massive universal audience. Only ~6,000 active items, but every PC gamer is a potential consumer. Any Windows user who owns Wallpaper Engine browses the Workshop for a visual upgrade, not just players of a niche game.
- The top items are cultural hits. Wallpaper Engine's most-subscribed item sits at 9.15 million subscriptions — a particle-animation audio-responsive wallpaper that has essentially become a piece of internet visual culture. Its top-5 alone pull tens of millions of subscribers.
When your "mod" is a high-quality wallpaper for a mass-market desktop tool, the subscriber ceiling is everyone with a monitor. That's why Wallpaper Engine isn't just #1 — it's in a different galaxy.
Why Unturned and Skyrim beat the volume titans
The next tier is revealing. Unturned (13,200/mod) and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (12,699/mod) both outperform the raw-volume champions despite having relatively small active catalogs (~6,000 mods each).
- Unturned is a free-to-play survival sandbox with a famously active workshop — creators contribute heavily and players subscribe to nearly every worthwhile item because there's no cost barrier and mods are integral to the experience.
- Skyrim is the modding cultural institution — despite Bethesda pulling Workshop and moving to Creations, the remaining Workshop catalog (and the modding ethos) still carries huge per-item demand. A modest Skyrim catalog with sky-high per-mod averages reflects the franchise's legendary mod appetite.
The volume games are surprisingly thin per-mod
The most striking inversion is how weak the biggest games look on a per-mod basis. Garry's Mod — the largest Workshop on Steam with 139,965 active mods and 1.5 billion total subs — averages just 10,761 subs per mod. That's not even in the top five. Cities: Skylines (80,170 mods) averages 9,201. Aimlabs (80,123 mods) averages just 4,679.
The lesson: these games are wide markets. A massive mod count dilutes demand — most items in a 100k-mod Workshop sit in long-tail obscurity. The total volume is so large it masks how hard it is for any single new creator to get discovered.
The favorites signal: Skyrim players bookmark, Left 4 Dead 2 players hoard
Average favorites per mod adds a second, behavioral dimension. Two games stand out on the favorites-per-subscription ratio:
- Left 4 Dead 2 — 17.9%. Nearly one in five subscriptions becomes a favorite. L4D2 players aggressively bookmark campaigns, maps, and addons they plan to revisit. A high favorite ratio signals sticky, replayable content.
- Skyrim — 9.9%. Second-highest on the main board. Players favorite mods they intend to return to, and Skyrim's content invites deep re-use.
- Company of Heroes 2 — 0.8% and House Flipper — 0.5% sit at the bottom, signaling ephemeral content — a single playthrough or pass, then move on.
For a creator, favorites are a demand-quality signal distinct from subscriptions: they predict whether a mod will keep drawing traffic and whether its audience is a committed returner or a one-and-done browser.
What this means for mod creators
If you're deciding where to invest modding effort, the per-mod demand curve reframes the decision entirely:
- Don't chase raw volume. The 100k+ mod games are overcrowded. A new mod in Garry's Mod or Cities: Skylines enters a sea of competition for a thin per-item share.
- Chase demand density. Games with high subs-per-mod and a smaller catalog — Wallpaper Engine, Unturned, Skyrim, Project Zomboid, Don't Starve Together — give a new item a far better shot at outsized reach because the competition-to-demand ratio is healthier.
- Favor sticky, bookmarkable content. If a game's audience favorites heavily (L4D2, Skyrim), a high-quality, replayable mod builds durable traffic. Favorites compound.
This is the kind of signal ModSignal surfaces every day — demand and subscriber velocity on the Steam Workshop, measured continuously rather than assumed. When you can see per-mod demand instead of just headline totals, the market tells you a much more interesting story.
Methodology & sources
Data: ModSignal's live PostgreSQL database, snapshot continuously from the Steam Web API (IPublishedFileService/QueryFiles and GetPublishedFileDetails). "Active mods" = currently enabled items in a game's Workshop; total subs/favs are summed across active items. Ranking filtered to games with ≥3,000 active mods and ≥50M total subscriptions to exclude supply-free noise. Figures current as of August 2026.