“game” is a big stretch for a lot of the asset flip or AI trash that is currently on steam.
Submitted 4 hours ago by Agent_Karyo@piefed.world to games@lemmy.world
Comments
the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
tordenflesk@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Anyone doing a uBlock for Steam?
fartsparkles@lemmy.world 20 minutes ago
Steamdb lets you filter out games with less than x reviews which I’ve made liberal use of over the years.
eleijeep@piefed.social 2 hours ago
I think this statistic would be more interesting if it filtered out all of the blatant cash-grab, asset-flip, AI generated shit that makes up a large portion of new releases.
Is it 19,000 releases with 10,000 actual sincere efforts at making a game, or 19,000 releases with 1,000 actual games.
And what’s the average number of reviews for actual games versus garbage?
anyhow2503@lemmy.world 46 minutes ago
I don’t think that’s trivial to filter.
dukemirage@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
That’s actually more than I thought. I thought about 80% fall into complete oblivion.
Dojan@pawb.social 3 hours ago
This was my initial reaction too. I am making the assumption that less than ten still means not zero.
I rarely leave reviews so I’m surprised that 50% of all releases even see a single one.
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 3 hours ago
10 reviews means like 500-1000 sales. The vast majority of people dont leave reviews.
mohab@piefed.social 3 hours ago
How often do people leave reviews? I rarely see a profile with +100 reviews.
I only leave reviews after 100% completion or a lot of time (hundreds of hours) in case of fighting games where sometimes 100% is ridiculously difficult to attain (oh hi, Plus R)
I think the average time between my picking up a game and leaving a review is like 3~12 months. Definitely even more if I’m not vibing with the game.
Sabata11792@ani.social 59 minutes ago
I’ll click the thumbs up button then get intimidated by the text box that pops up. I’m not mentally prepared to give out a useful review.
mohab@piefed.social 51 minutes ago
Same. I’m often in the process of breaking down why I like/dislike the game, what works about it, and what doesn’t as I’m playing. I can’t give honest feedback with incomplete thoughts.
jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 1 hour ago
I leave reviews when the game does something exceptional (good or bad). Or sometimes when steam nags me to leave a review.
It’s funny: if you leave a negative review and keep playing it asks you if you want to change your review.
justdaveisfine@piefed.social 3 hours ago
As I recall, its around 5%-20% of players leave a review, usually closer to 5% unless something about the game makes people want to talk about it, for both good and bad.
kazerniel@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
I recall an estimation that about 1/20 players leave a review, but this probably depends a lot on genre and other factors.
Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 hour ago
Other people have mentioned removing asset flips and AI slop. I’m wondering what this dataset looks like if you remove all of the shitty NSFW games that get shoveled out en masse.
Agent_Karyo@piefed.world 4 hours ago
I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’ve heard a rough proxy for modest success “above breakeven” in the indie sphere is 1,000+ reviews.
The chart doesn’t break out the 1,000+ review count band, but it looks like under 5% of the 19,000 games released in 2025 on Steam were even able to go above 500 review count.
The 1,000+ review count band as a measure of success does make sense in a back of the napkin kind of way.
Assuming 5% of buyers leave a review, that would be 20,000 in sales. At a net unit revenue of $10 (after Steam’s cut and the payment processor), that would be $200 K net revenue.
justdaveisfine@piefed.social 3 hours ago
An unfortunate ‘secret’ for most indie titles is that the vast majority of their sales are on discount, usually during launch or one of the big week long sales. Not a lot of people buy indie games at full sticker price unless its a pretty high quality title.
So your $200K net revenue would be at absolute max, but is realistically ~50-80% of that.
Agent_Karyo@piefed.world 1 hour ago
That’s fair. A blended net revenue per unit figure of $10 might actually be high.
Passerby6497@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Assuming 5% of buyers leave a review, that would be 20,000 in sales. At a net unit revenue of $10 (after Steam’s cut and the payment processor), that would be $200 K net revenue.
A unit revenue of $10 means your product is going for ~15 base price. I don’t know about you, but I rarely buy stuff above $10 anymore. So like the other guy said, you’re looking at like half of that based on people buying during sales.
atrielienz@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Haven’t you heard. Indie games have to launch on steam or they fail miserably.
Seriously though. This is why I roll my eyes at people who claim steam makes it breaks these games. Humble bundle? Runs sales events where these games get showcased. Itch.io’s whole schtick is selling indie games.
It’s nice that Valve gives studios a platform to help market their games and all that, and yes, by dint of being one of the largest gaming sale platforms out there launching on steam helps their chances. But most of them weren’t ever gonna reach the success of AAA titles regardless and we pretend that that’s Valve’s fault for reasons I have never understood.
It’s the same problem with each of the online stores including the Nintendo E-Shop. Your game still has to be decent and be marketed to the people who want to play it.
Additionally they have to have time to play it. Which means you’re fighting every other game in the category in order to claim each players time.
There’s a whole lot to making and marketing a successful game at literally every level and not every studio can be a Team Cherry.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 17 minutes ago
Indie games have to launch on steam or they fail miserably. Seriously though. This is why I roll my eyes at people who claim steam makes it breaks these games.
Those two things aren’t opposed though. Launching on Steam doesn’t guarantee success, but I believe what they’re claiming is that not launching on Steam more or less guarantees its failure.
jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 1 hour ago
Additionally they have to have time to play it.
And money to buy it! Wages are down. I was unemployed for a while so I just didn’t buy any games (or much else)
atrielienz@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Absolutely true.
flamiera@kbin.melroy.org 19 minutes ago
People don't even write honest reviews anymore anyways on steam. It's just cheap catering to get awarded points for shitty memes and jokes.