Play the history. Go behind the scenes of Jordan Mechner's landmark game Karateka in this interactive documentary from Digital Eclipse, with archival materials, video features, and more. Experience pixel-perfect versions of this legendary game, with all-new features.
Modeled estimate, not a reported figure. How we estimate →
Discounts
Every price cut of more than 20% we have observed, in each market that quoted one, with this game's chart position on either side of it. These are episodes, not a model: a sale is one event, and one event cannot tell you what the next one will do.
Reviews, worldwide (the counter carries no country): 0/day in the week to Aug 27 → 0.14/day in the week after.
About
Genres
Sums Steam only; GOG, Xbox, Epic, Nintendo publish no volume signal, so the true total is higher by an unknown amount.
Engagement
Reviews
Themes across 42 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
Reviews
I was ten when I bought Karateka for my C64. I had played Melbourne House's Way of the Exploding Fist and it was really showing what the C64 could do graphically. (I hadn't got Defender of the Crown yet) But when I started playing Karateka I was again impressed with the fluidity of the animations and the illusion of scrolling with Mt Fuji in the background. Anyway, this game/documentary is excellent. I love being able to look at the notes of the creator and it takes me back to when I was also doing some basic coding to make simple games work in basic and ML languages on the C64. I hope to see many more of these collections around other classic games or franchises. Great work!
This is an excellent example of what a videogame documentary should be. I could play a dozen of these without feeling like it had overstayed its welcome. I especially liked having playable prototypes and earlier games. The remakes were cool, and I loved the commentary that accompanied them and the auto-playing demos.
Media
Related
Related
Price dynamics, follower growth, revenue and sales trajectories with interactive tooltips
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Related
| Game | Estimated lifetime revenue | Reviews | Review score | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $61.3K | 155 | 61% | $14.99 | |
| $61.3K | 469 | 89% | $6.29 | |
| $61.3K | 149 | 87% | $12.99 | |
| $61.3K | 140 | 74% | $8.99 | |
| $61.3K | 314 | 85% | $12.99 | |
| $61.3K | 130 | 62% | $13.99 |
Related
| Game | Estimated lifetime revenue | Reviews | Review score | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $0 | 0 | — | $3.99 | |
| $117.4K | 294 | 89% | $19.99 | |
| $15.7K | 34 | 76% | $17.99 | |
| $3K | 14 | 93% | $8.99 | |
| $186 | 5 | 80% | $1.99 | |
| $0 | 0 | — | $5.99 |
For scale, across Steam · Top Sellers · Brazil over the last 30 days: the 26 chart moves that followed a price cut of more than 20% went a median of 7 places towards #1, and the 2,400 moves with no price cut behind them went 2 away. One store, one chart, one country — it is the only place we have enough observations to say even that.
Prices outside the United States have been collected since 6 August 2026 and chart positions since 19 July 2026, so a cut older than that has no market to compare and a market that joined later has no history yet. Nothing here is converted between currencies.
Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English*, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Japanese*languages with full audio support
| $5.99−70% |
| 56ratings |
| 98% |
| — |
| not modelled |
| $19.99 | — | — | — | not modelled |
| $19.99 | — | — | — | not modelled |
Matched by title — a reused name can pair the wrong games. * is a critic aggregate. Prices and positions are each store's United States storefront; Epic charts worldwide. Audience and Score too, except Steam's, which is worldwide.
Hours played at review time, across 42 reviews with recorded playtime.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
Digital Eclipse Gold Master series <3
A decent documentary that deep-dives into the very beginnings of Jordan Mechner's gaming career. The two "reloaded" remake games (Deathbounce and Karateka) are pretty decent, though unlike the Atari 50 documentary this one is a little light on playables. The meat of the package lay in the interviews and copious amounts of scanned notes that Mechner diligently kept during development. My main takeaway from it was that Mechner's dad was the coolest (check their wikipedia page), and Jordan really lucked out having such a supportive and multidisciplinary dad. A nice touch: the playables all have a "watch" mode that plays the game for you, and you can scrub through the timeline via chapters to quickly see the whole experience without needing to play it yourself. Wonderful for non-gamers or time-strapped. While The Making of Karateka may be the runt of the Gold Master Series litter, it's still a great addition to a phenomenally appreciated series trying to shine light on an industry that seems all to eager to forget what happened yesterday in the pursuit of tomorrow's profits.
I remember saving up enough money to by my first C64 and two games. The games were Aliens and Karateka. I played both games so much that I wore out one of them and had to buy another copy. Karateka is one of my favorite games of all time. In my youth I played many games, now I focus mostly on retro games for their simplicity and nostalgia. Simplicity in no way means easy of course. Spending a good half hour on a game and feeling accomplished is an amazing feeling and this game will do that for you. A beautiful game and a wonderful documentary as well.
This is not just Karateka. It has original versions on different platforms, different prototypes of the game, it has a remake that is clearly made with a lot of love and passion. It has a mini documentary and lots of images and videos on how the game was made. With "The Making of Karateka" Digital Eclipse and Gold Master Series have just set up the Golden Standard of what Game Preservation is.
Hilarious "Jordan Mechner, boy wonder" metanarrative, but a very well done and fascinating presentation of real video game history.
A bright example of awesome edutainment on Steam! It contains (most of) actual games to reinforce story with actual gaming experience. This is interactive museum. The latest remake of Karateka from 2023 is also included. Personally it's kinda fun to see game design challenges and game design principles from early 1980's which are true up to present day. And somehow even today not every game developer knows them. Liked the experience. Worth every cent.
Pura nostalgia! Com as versões mais famosas do jogo e seu remake impecável! Quem gostava deste jogo, vai querer ter!
Great digital museum for Karateka. Multiple versions of the game included as well as other games created by the same guy, and a remaster of Karateka. Awesome story of early computer games well worth the money for anybody into retro computer games or interest in the history of video game development. Digital Eclipse has redefined game collections of this style. I was familiar with Karateka prior to playing , but had no idea about the story behind it's development. Hope Digital Eclipse continues to create stuff like this.
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Players by region
Where this game's players are, estimated from review languages.