Cookie Clicker is now on Steam

Cookie Clicker
(Image credit: Orteil)

Notorious time-waster Cookie Clicker has finally arrived on Steam, threatening to immortalise how much of your fleeting time on Earth you've expended clicking virtual biscuits with Steam's time played tracker.

Released as a free browser game back in 2013, Cookie Clicker is, uh, exactly that. Click a cookie, get a cookie. Keep clicking cookies, get more cookies, cookies that can be used to unlock bulk cookie-clicking tools like grannies, cookie factories, and time machines for abducting cooking in bulk from the future.

The game has been in active development since, ported to mobile and kickstarting an entire genre of idle games that take advantage of our primal desire to make numbers go up. Not too shabby for a game whose own creator describes it as a joke.

"Cookie Clicker was made as a joke but took off almost immediately, which perplexed us very much at first," creator Julien Thiennot (AKA Orteil) told Waypoint earlier this week. "It wasn't meant to be fun! We just tapped into the core psychological appeal behind a lot of games: getting something done. Life is a confusing mess where progress is often unclear and unrewarding, but video games make goals much more explicit; for idle games it's as bare-bones as making a number go up."

Despite not meaning to be fun, Cookie Clicker took off. There are now hundreds of "Idler" games listed on Steam, all following the same format laid down by Orteil so many years ago. Cookie Clicker joins them on Steam with cloud saves to store your baking between devices, and full Steam achievement support to flaunt your cookie-clicking prowess with.

Natalie Clayton
Features Producer

20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she's not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.

Read more
A banana, on its own, in an orange void.
That Banana clicker game is somehow still one of Steam's most-played games, with 100K+ concurrents seeing it consistently outranking the likes of Call of Duty and Helldivers 2
A screenshot of Stimulation Clicker. There are bouncing DVD logos and buttons to click and clips from multiple YouTube videos playing.
Stimulation Clicker distills a decade of internet brainrot into exposure therapy that makes you stupid—plus, it's free!
Cozy Desktop Konbini screenshots
My favourite Steam Next Fest game, Cozy Desktop Konbini, combines my love for shopping management sims and desktop idlers
Browser games — Townscaper's lovely towers.
The best browser games
An image of the "Stonks" meme with the Steam logo overlayed onto it. The meme depicts a man in a suit with numbers trending upwards.
Nearly 19,000 games released on Steam in 2024
Steam logo
Only 15% of all Steam users' time was spent playing games released in 2024
Latest in Action
A hunter hefts a massive Mega Barrel Bomb in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Monster Hunter Wilds players can't stop blowing themselves to smithereens with its rollable barrel bombs
A hunter poses with a large hammer as their palico cheers nearby in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Monster Hunter Wilds weapon tier list
Naoe looking at the wrist blade in Assassin's Creed Shadows
Ubisoft backflips, says Assassin's Creed Shadows will support Steam Deck at launch, but I doubt I'll actually want to play it there
character creation in Monster Hunter Wilds
The best Monster Hunter Wilds mods
Two rising ronin facing each other
Rise of the Ronin is another crappy PC port, performance patch coming 'soon'
A hunter grins and throws two peace/victory signs while wearing a Mimiphyta helm in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Monster Hunter Wilds' best change is to its layered armor, letting me finally run amok with dressup the way I should have always been able to
Latest in News
Gabe Newell in a Valve promotional video, on a yacht.
Go ahead and complain the discounts aren't as steep as they used to be, but Steam just had its biggest year ever for seasonal sales
Valve Steam Deck OLED handheld PC
'The future of hardware at Valve is bright': Valve celebrates the success of Steam Deck and Steam OS
Key art of the videogame Lunacid, showing a pale, long haired knight in purple armor contemplating a purple, flaming sword surrounded by the different phases of the moon.
One of my favorite indie RPGs is getting a follow-up made with FromSoftware's 25-year-old Super Mario Maker for first person dungeon crawlers
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 image - Henry riding a pink and blue striped horse while holding a fish
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 now has Steam Workshop support, and of course one of the first mods lets you adjust the 'jiggle physics'
Still image of Bastion holding a bird, taken from Microsoft's Copilot for Gaming reveal trailer
Microsoft unveils Copilot for Gaming, an AI-powered 'ultimate gaming sidekick' that will let you talk to your console so you don't have to talk to your friends
Erenshor - A player and two simulated MMO party members stand on a plateau in front of a yellow landscape
This RuneScape-looking 'simulated MMORPG' has all the nostalgia without the drama because all the other 'players' are NPCs