{"id":343313,"date":"2026-05-31T00:34:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T19:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=343313"},"modified":"2026-05-31T00:34:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T19:04:46","slug":"a-recent-free-to-play-game-on-steam-is-absolutely-blowing-up-but-there-is-a-catch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/31\/a-recent-free-to-play-game-on-steam-is-absolutely-blowing-up-but-there-is-a-catch\/","title":{"rendered":"A Recent Free-to-Play Game on Steam Is Absolutely Blowing Up, But There is a Catch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>A brand new free-to-play idle RPG called <em><strong>TBH: Task Bar Hero<\/strong><\/em> has climbed onto Steam&#8217;s top 15 most-played games list with over 100,000 concurrent players. Nevertheless, its reviews have recently fallen to Mixed attributable to serious allegations and performance issues. An idle game features low-effort gameplay with mostly AFK progression, and the genre has been popular on Steam for quite a while.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- No AdsNinja v10 Client! --><!-- No AdsNinja v10 Client! --><\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, only a handful of indie titles within the genre have reached the identical massive audience as <em>TBH: Task Bar Hero<\/em>. Probably the most-played idle games on Steam is <em>Bongo Cat<\/em>, which has a quite simple premise: Each time the player presses a button on the mouse or keyboard, they earn points. Despite its simplicity, <em>Bongo Cat<\/em> reached an all-time peak of over 190,000 concurrent players on Steam and has remained considered one of the platform&#8217;s trending titles since launch. Now, <em>TBH: Task Bar Hero<\/em> appears to be Steam&#8217;s next breakout idle hit, though it&#8217;s currently facing several major issues.<\/p>\n<p><!-- No AdsNinja v10 Client! --><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"tbh-task-bar-hero-controversy-explained\">\n                        TBH: Task Bar Hero Controversy Explained<br \/>\n               <\/h2>\n<p>Released on May 27, 2026, <em>TBH: Task Bar Hero<\/em> quickly attracted a surge of players, reaching a peak concurrent player count of 104,957 inside roughly 72 hours (<a href=\"https:\/\/steamdb.info\/app\/3678970\/charts\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">via SteamDB<\/a>). While this could have been a serious milestone for indie developers Nugem Studio and Tesseract, the sport was soon flooded with negative reviews, dropping its Steam rating to &#8220;Mixed.&#8221; Matters escalated further as some players accused <em>TBH: Task Bar Hero<\/em> of being spyware, potentially used to gather user data.<\/p>\n<div id=\"sib\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"stage\" id=\"sibStage\">\n<section aria-hidden=\"false\" class=\"panel start-panel is-active\" id=\"sibPanelStart\">\n<div class=\"start-card\">Scratch &#038; Peek<\/p>\n<p> Discover the duvet art while scratching off as little foil as possible.<\/p>\n<p><span>EasyMediumHardPermadeath<\/span><button class=\"pillbtn start\" id=\"sibStartBtn\" type=\"button\">Start<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"panel game-panel\" id=\"sibPanelGame\">\n<section aria-label=\"Scratch stage\" class=\"card stageCard\">\n<\/section>\n<section aria-label=\"Answers panel\" class=\"card\">\n<div class=\"answersHead\">\n<div class=\"statusRow\">\n<p>Scratch to disclose<\/p>\n<p>Low reveal = larger bonus<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p><button class=\"pillbtn\" id=\"sibRestartBtn\" type=\"button\">Restart<\/button><button class=\"pillbtn\" id=\"sibRevealBtn\" type=\"button\">Reveal<\/button><button class=\"pillbtn\" id=\"sibQuitBtn\" type=\"button\">Back<\/button><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"panel results-panel\" id=\"sibPanelResults\">\n<div class=\"results-card\">Results<\/p>\n<p>0<\/p>\n<p>High Rating: 0<br \/>\n\u2014<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The event team quickly <a href=\"https:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=d325da4c00e59f5c25e7b4b7cc6a9b26&#038;cuid=UUgrUeUpU2306243&#038;u=https%3A%2F%2Fstore.steampowered.com%2Fnews%2Fapp%2F3678970%2Fview%2F711150909845931662%3Fl%3Denglish\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow sponsored\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"norewrite noskim\">responded with a Steam community post<\/a> explaining the information the sport collects. They stated, &#8220;Data is stored only when it is definitely vital. The corporate looks up additional information only when the potential use of cheat software is detected. Consequently, for the overwhelming majority of users, no information beyond a Steam ID is ever stored.&#8221; While this clarification may help ease the spyware concerns, <em>TBH: Task Bar Hero<\/em> can also be reportedly facing significant performance issues. Nevertheless, the developers claim these problems are largely attributable to Steam itself.<\/p>\n<div class=\"body-img landscape \">\n<div class=\"responsive-img  image-expandable  img-article-item\" style=\"padding-bottom:56.25%\" data-img-url=\"https:\/\/static0.gamerantimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/tbh-task-bar-hero-steamdb-player-chart-gamerant.jpg\" data-modal-id=\"single-image-modal\" data-modal-container-id=\"single-image-modal-container\" data-img-caption='\"Image via SteamDB\"'>\n<figure><picture><source media=\"(max-width: 480px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.gamerantimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/tbh-task-bar-hero-steamdb-player-chart-gamerant.jpg?q=49&#038;fit=crop&#038;w=500&#038;dpr=2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.gamerantimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/tbh-task-bar-hero-steamdb-player-chart-gamerant.jpg?q=49&#038;fit=crop&#038;w=500&#038;dpr=2\"><\/source><source media=\"(max-width: 767px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.gamerantimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/tbh-task-bar-hero-steamdb-player-chart-gamerant.jpg?q=49&#038;fit=crop&#038;w=800&#038;dpr=2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.gamerantimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/tbh-task-bar-hero-steamdb-player-chart-gamerant.jpg?q=49&#038;fit=crop&#038;w=800&#038;dpr=2\"><\/source><source media=\"(max-width: 1023px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.gamerantimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/tbh-task-bar-hero-steamdb-player-chart-gamerant.jpg?q=49&#038;fit=crop&#038;w=825&#038;dpr=2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.gamerantimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/tbh-task-bar-hero-steamdb-player-chart-gamerant.jpg?q=49&#038;fit=crop&#038;w=825&#038;dpr=2\"><\/source><br \/>\n        <img width=\"1650\" height=\"928\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"steamdb data showing concurrent player count for tbh: task bar hero on steam.\" data-img-url=\"https:\/\/static0.gamerantimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/tbh-task-bar-hero-steamdb-player-chart-gamerant.jpg?q=49&#038;fit=crop&#038;w=825&#038;dpr=2\" src=\"https:\/\/static0.gamerantimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/tbh-task-bar-hero-steamdb-player-chart-gamerant.jpg?q=49&#038;fit=crop&#038;w=825&#038;dpr=2\">\n        <\/picture><small class=\"body-img-caption\">Image via SteamDB<\/small><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> Certainly one of the most important issues fans of idle games face in <em>TBH: Task Bar Hero<\/em> is the random lack of hard-earned items and, in some cases, purchases. The developers explained in one other post that the majority of those problems are attributable to Steam server outages and that they&#8217;re working to contact Valve to handle the situation. Additionally they plan to introduce a compensation period once the problems are resolved, aiming to revive all the things players have lost.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"why-tbh-task-bar-hero-is-so-popular-right-now\">\n            Why TBH: Task Bar Hero Is So Popular Right Now<br \/>\n    <\/h3>\n<p>Despite these issues, some players may query why <em>TBH: Task Bar Hero<\/em> stays amongst Steam&#8217;s most-played games. Those that just like the game argue that its premise and visuals are genuinely fresh and fascinating. Despite being a small indie project, <em>TBH: Task Bar Hero<\/em> offers a roster of over 500 collectibles, all tradable on the Steam Market. It also includes greater than 50 enemy types and multiple difficulty levels, adding a ton of replay value. Briefly, many imagine <em>TBH: Task Bar Hero<\/em> has solid core gameplay, but is just going through a rough launch.<\/p>\n<p>In the approaching days, it&#8217;s going to be interesting to see how the event team handles the present issues and whether <em>TBH: Task Bar Hero<\/em> can maintain its impressive player base. To this point, the team has released multiple updates and hotfixes aimed toward improving performance. If this regular pace of patches continues, <em>TBH: Task Bar Hero <\/em>may have the opportunity to beat its current problems and establish itself as a staple within the idle RPG genre.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A brand new free-to-play idle RPG called TBH: Task Bar Hero has climbed onto Steam&#8217;s top 15 most-played games list with over 100,000 concurrent players. Nevertheless, its reviews have recently fallen to Mixed attributable to serious allegations and performance issues. An idle game features low-effort gameplay with mostly AFK progression, and the genre has been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":343314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[1960,7627,4181,17193,585,193],"class_list":["post-343313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming","tag-absolutely","tag-blowing","tag-catch","tag-freetoplay","tag-game","tag-steam"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":343316,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343313\/revisions\/343316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}