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Despite the best efforts of Epic Games and other companies, Steam remains the most popular video game distribution platform among PC users. For the same reason, it is not surprising that many developers, especially independent ones, decide to release their video games there.
After researching the Steam database, Thomas Altenburger, Director of Flying Oak Games, discovered that the Valve platform hosted 9,279 new video game launches in 2020, which is an impressive new record.
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According to creativity, a video game is released every 53 minutes on Steam. Plus, the new record doubles the number of games released in 2016, which is certainly impressive.
Steam market is saturated. 50% of games sold under 640 units
Of course, the excess of video games on the platform has already saturated the market. This means, unfortunately, that many exciting and innovative proposals fail to stand out, so they do not have good commercial performance.
According to independent developer research, 50% of video games have sold less than 640 copies, while 75% have sold less than 2,800 units. The alarming data does not end here, as only 5% of video games released in 2020 made up 90% of all sales.
More in-depth data if we filter only indie games:
6,376 indie games in 2020.
50% of indie games sold less than 640 units.
75% of indie games sold less than 2,480 units.
5% of games made 88% of total sales.
– Thomas Altenburger 🍕🍍 (@mrhelmut) 7 July 2021
On the other hand, the research showed that 6,376 indie video games were released on Steam last year, representing 68.71% of the total. Unfortunately, many of these addresses have been forgotten.
We can see that 50% of the independent shows sold less than 640 copies, while 75% did not reach 2,480 units. Finally, 90% of all indie games sales on the platform went to 5% of games.
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It should be noted that they are not official figures, in addition to the fact that Thomas Altenberger did not disclose the methodology of his investigation. For this reason, there is a possibility that the numbers may differ with reality. Either way, it is undeniable that Steam is home to thousands upon thousands of video games, which can be a concern for small developers who can’t afford an advertising campaign.
But tell us, what do you think of these numbers? Let’s read to you in the comments.
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