The number of games released on Steam has steadily increased over the past few years, with the Valve platform accommodating a significant amount of AAA and indie productions.
Precisely the latter have been at the center of an interesting statistical analysis conducted by Chris Zhukov, expert on the video game market. According to the data collected by the analyst, “only” 500 Indie games would manage to emerge each year on Steam. A value that would be confirmed cyclically, regardless of the total number of publications launched in the twelve months.
To reach this conclusion, Chris Zukov analyzed the mechanisms that regulate the promotion of Indies on the store. In particular, the analyst has identified the threshold of 1,000 reviews as a parameter capable of certifying an interest in the product by the Steam algorithm. An interesting detail, however, it seems that – regardless of the number of games released on the portal – the store is unable to highlight more than 500 Indies approximately every year. In the 2016for example, against 4,400 total games released on Steam, 468 Indies they got 1,000 reviews. In the 2022the value settled on 473however in the face of 12,800 exits total!
An interesting analysis, which seems to indicate a saturation of the independent development market, with the public able to devote attention to up to 500 Indies each year. And there, how many Indies do you play each year? Soon, we remind you, the Steam Next Fest in February will start, with many small productions to try for free.
