These popular genres are very niche and the press ignores them. Journalists don’t put these games on their “best of” lists but they are extremely popular with the hard core Steam audience. If you just rely on journalists for your market research you will miss some highly profitable genres.
City builder
Open world survival craft
4X (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate)
Simulation
Strategy in general
Visual Novel
Indie Horror
Factorio automation games
Colony Sims
Turn based games in general
Sand boxy janky games (example: Surgeon Simulator, TABS) – Hilarious for streamers. They get so much coverage and so many sales if they are funny enough.
Extraction shooters – New genre that is a sub-sub-sub genre.
Management Sims