2025 in Review – Website Stats, Highlights and Musings
There’s no denying it: 2025 has been a massive success for The Mane Quest in terms of site traffic: The site saw 235’000 unique visitors, resulting in 379’000 page views. Those are the highest numbers ever, even beating out the Pandemic-induced previous records from 2020.
Since the site launched in 2018, we’re looking at a grand total of 1.1 million unique visitors accounting for 2 million page views
The Mane Quest got between 16’000 and 25’000 unique visitors every month this year, with February and April being on the quiet side, and March and September being the most active.
The biggest single day traffic spike this year was on March 30th with 6.9k page views, and came – as far as I am able to track it – from this Reddit thread where a kind poster mentioned my site in response to a discussion about why there are no horses in Baldur’s Gate 3. I’m quite active on Reddit and I do my best to talk about my work whenever it’s appropriate, but the fact that a random comment in a post about a game that doesn’t even have horses in it had such a noticeable impact sure is something. Give shoutouts to creators you like, people! It can absolutely make their day!
The runners up for Daily Traffic were January 10th with the announcement of AI-slop game “Horses 2025” (3k page views), the reveal of horses coming to Disney’s Dreamlight Valley on September 3rd (3.3k page views), and, for some reason, June 15th (6.1k page views). On that day, a seven year old dev log from my own horse game prototype that I’ve long put on ice and my Farming Simulator 2019 review got 1.2k views each for some reason. If anyone wants to play detective, help me find out who the hell mentioned TMQ on that day in a way that doesn’t show up in referral traffic. Maybe I have a podcaster or youtuber to thank somewhere?
The site’s traffic breakdown for the whole year is distributed as follows: 61.8% Search traffic, 23.8% Direct traffic, 9.9% Social traffic, 4.27% Referral traffic, and a meager 0.16% Email traffic because I still have not actually set up a Newsletter despite having had a signup button on my site forever.
I’ve written and published 31 articles in 2025! That’s not quite record-breaking, but solidly above average and an accomplishment I’m happy with.
When we break traffic down by Geography, the United States remain at the top with 38.9% of traffic, followed by the United Kingdom at 8.21%, Germany at 5.64%, Canada with 5.63% and Australia with 4.1%. My home country of Switzerland is once again on rank 18, this time with just about 0.89% of visits
The Horses & Video Games communities have seen significant growth once again this year: Our Facebook Group remains the juggernaut here, with a whopping 42’000 members! The /r/GamesWithHorses Subreddit has more than doubled in size the past year and now has over 7’500 subscribers! Our Discord server remains cozy with 1’700 members, but more than makes up in quality over quantity as ever. Kalma, Agent and Cutty have my everlasting gratitude for helping me wrangle all of these people. Miraculously (knocks on wood), we’re still getting by with just the four of us as moderators despite the consistent growth. That we’ve built a welcoming space for a big bunch of generally lovely people sure helps!
Top 10 Articles of 2025, by page views
Best Horse Games 2025 (88k)
Ghost of Tsushima Review (12.7k)
Sims 4 Horse Ranch Review (12.1k)
Best Horse Games 2022 (9.7k)
Top 10 Articles of all time, by page views
Best Horse Games 2022 (175k)
Best Horse Games 2019 (137k)
Best Horse Games 2025 (93k)
Ghost of Tsushima Review (34k)
Windstorm 2 Review (29k)
8 Common Horse Mistakes (24k)
Top 10 Search Keywords in 2025 (Clicks, Impressions)
horse game(s) (18k Cl., 277k Imp.)
ghost of tsushima horse(s) (2.5k Cl., 20k Imp.)
the mane quest (2.1k Cl., 3.2k Imp.)
best horse games (1.4k Cl., 8k Imp.)
horse games online (1.3k Cl., 21.8k Imp.)
horse games pc (1.3k Cl., 9.2k Imp.)
horses 2025 (1.3k Cl., 6k Imp.)
sims 4 horse ranch (1.1k Cl., 41.8k Imp.)
fernhoof grove (0.9k Cl., 2.9k Imp.)
horse riding games (0.9k Cl., 11.8k Imp.)
Top 10 Referral Sources in 2025
Facebook
Reddit
Yandex.ru
Twitter
Instagram
search.brave.com
Bluesky
GamePro.de
howtomarketagame.com
steamcommunity.com
Highlights
Obviously I don’t do all of this just for clicks, so here’s what’s made me happy in TMQ business this year:
Exhibiting The Legend of Khiimori in an actual Mongolian ger at Gamescom was very cool
The Kickstarter campaign for The Legend of Khiimori was a big success! I was only superficially involved in the (very time-consuming!) planning and management, but very proud of what my colleagues at Aesir Interactive achieved with it. If you’re interested in a bit of a highlight reel for Khiimori specifically, please check out this Dev Diary that I wrote.
In March, I wrote an article about how digital representations of horses in fancy little prisons are increasingly grating on me, and what horse stables can (and should) look like if they properly account for the animals’ needs for Friends, Forage and Freedom. With about 1300 views, that article isn’t my most popular work, but I have a feeling (and hope?) that it might be impactful in the long term. Even just this year, the article (and the very positive reception it has received from commenters) has helped me plant a seed of “hey what if we portrayed horse stabling differently” in several conversations with clients. That horses are social herd animals that don’t thrive in solitary confinement isn’t exactly news, and yet it remains a point of contention even in the real life equestrian scene. Let’s do better in games at least, and lead by example.
The announcement, ongoing development and generally positive reception of Equinox: Homecoming is an important step forward for our entire niche. The game has ways to go, but I’ve seen first-hand in the consulting work I’ve done for Blue Scarab this year that these people want to do right by the horse game audience and are applying a lot skill to that task.
I launched a TikTok account for The Mane Quest this year! It has already outgrown my follower numbers on most other social media platforms, and a few of my more successful videos were excellent drivers of traffic to my website, as well as the games featured therein. The short video format allows me to recap and summarize some of the work I do for this website and is great for reaching people who might not see my site otherwise.
The Witcher 4 tech demo that showcased Ciri’s horse Kelpie didn’t just make me happy because we’re looking at some really damn solid video game horse representation (more here), but also because apparently, my reputation as the industry’s resident horse nerd has become well known enough that I had a writer from Rock Paper Shotgun knock on my metaphorical door to ask for my opinion before the reveal livestream was even over. Let’s hope CDPR keeps up that marvellous work on the horse front. Someone may have sent them a long list of ideas on scope-friendly ways for how to improve Kelpie’s involvement in the gameplay….
In another fun instance of “games journalists ask me for my opinion now”, I appreciated Aftermath’s Nathan Grayson giving me a chance to (yet again) yap about my conflicted feelings about Umamusume and the fact that it’s now the most well-received game about equestrian sports.
I’m particularly pleased with my latest developer interview featuring Éloïse Laroche as well as my Ranch of Rivershine review. Not only is the game absolutely solid and I enjoyed it a lot, but I remain a huge fan of Éloïse’s approach to her work, and I wish any aspiring horse game devs would take her advice to heart and learn from her!
Attending Gamescom in my still new but increasingly established role as horse game consultant has been incredibly rewarding the second year in a row. This time around, I may not have given a talk, but I’ve had a series of very interesting meetings with a lot of people actively making horse games or planning to make them in the future. And I got to sing a Zelda themed parody of Pink Pony Club at Maraoke, which was a ton of fun even though half my voice was already gone by that point.
After years of seeing first time indie horse game devs hopelessly overscope and never release any finished games, some members of our wonderful community have taken things into their own hands and launched the Tiny Horse Game Jam! A one-month game jam where beginners and hobbyists support each other in conceiving and realizing very small and feasible horse game projects. The jam took place twice this year, in May and November, resulting in a total of 29 wonderfully unique little horse games! I’m so, so incredibly proud of “my” community putting this together, helping each other out and releasing their wonderful little games out into the world via itch.io.
Last but most certainly not least, this fall saw the announcement of Horses of Hoofprint Bay, the hand-drawn 2D Stable Management game and Mein Pferdehof reimagining whose team I’ve joined as marketer, publisher and consultant. Two months after its reveal, we’re close to 10’000 wishlists, conducting playtests with about 270 people and counting, and are enjoying a very positive reception from both testers and onlookers.
Feelings
I’m often underway with one of two co-riders that also take care of these two, but I’ve started doing ponying experiments with both horses when I’m alone.
My Highlights section is lengthy this year, and typing it out has made me feel incredibly warm and fuzzy. Like damn, a lot of cool stuff has happened in the horse game business in 2025.
Following my burnout and sick leave in late 2023, my relationship to the work I do remains a rollercoaster. I love what I do, but I still struggle all too often with my own sense of “productivity”, with getting enough billable hours of work into the day. Self-employment means I can take breaks whenever I want to, but it unfortunately also means that days off and days spent sick don’t produce income. The fact that “I don’t feel like starting any of the tasks on my plate” usually isn’t laziness, but my body’s way of telling me I need a break or that I need to change something about the task itself, is a lesson I somehow have to relearn every other month or so. Shoutout to Rowan Ellis for dropping a topical video essay just as I was beginning to get anxious about all the things I didn’t get around to doing before Christmas.
What’s absolutely wonderful in any case is that I can sustain myself from my horse game work. This was my first full year in freelance self-employment, and I know (or at least have to remind myself on occasion) that actually making a living from a self-started business within such a relatively short time is not to be taken for granted. I am grateful for all of the clients that value my input enough to hire me, and for all the community members, journalists and fellow developers that bolster my reach and legitimacy in their various ways.
I did also start a non-horse-game job in early 2025, and have been working one day per week as Marketing and Communications Manager with my dear friends at Okomotive all year, supporting the release of Herdling and the recent announcement of PinKeep. I deeply appreciate having an onsite team and office, after years of doing exclusively remote work, and as odd as it may sound, this job – or rather, the wonderful people I get to do it with – is honestly doing a lot of good for my general emotional and social well-being.
I pay for this view with an uphill bike ride.
After moving house in late 2024, I’ve also taken up a new riding opportunity this Spring! I get to go on trail rides and take lessons with Azor, a 9 year old PRE gelding, and Ourgon, a 23 year old Camargue horse. Ourgon is a wonderfully chill companion whose main objective is to stay fit and moving despite advancing age, while Azor brings a whole lot of challenges in groundwork, but makes for an incredibly lovely ride. Although trail rides have been at the forefront of my responsibility with them, I’m thrilled to take lessons with the horses’ trainer and owner every once in a while, and have tons and tons to learn there – even if the twenty-five minutes of steep uphill bike ride I take to the barn makes me want to die a little bit every time.
I face 2026 with a somewhat grounded optimism: I have a few very interesting projects and clients on my plate – including some very exciting unannounced stuff! – and I’m keen to see Horses of Hoofprint Bay move forward towards the release of a public Demo very soon. At the same time, I’m often not fully booked out, with my work on several projects being a bit irregular and depending on my clients’ needs. Meaning: if you see anyone who might need help on how to add horses into their game, do send them my way!
With that, I want to once again extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who reads my articles, everyone who leaves comments on them, everyone who’s ever shared them with a friend. Thank you for being here and for taking an interest in my various horse game opinions and the journey I’ve been on. 💖
Here’s to the next one 🥂
