Over 50% of all steam games have never made over $1000

nanoUFO@sh.itjust.worksmod to Games@sh.itjust.works – 234 points –
Infographic: Steam video game market report 2023
gamalytic.com
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Considering how much stuff people dump on there that probably doesn't even deserve to be released it's not super surprising right? I'm more surprised that 8.9% of games, that's almost 1 in 10, made over $200k.

Also clearly visual novels are not the way to go if you want to make a lot of money

Yeah exactly. Because to me it implies that less than 90% is shovelware crap, and I cannot quite believe this. It doesn't feel that way, even with all the filtering Steam offers nowadays.

Compare the Nintendo eShop, which doesn't filter and where Nintendo doesn't care, and the endless pages and pages and pages of shovelware you need to scroll through (and 15 iterations of AAA Clock for 2€, 80% off! 😅) to find each single proper game.

I would have thought 2%-3% make money, honestly.

There is probably some bias because games that make money stick around a lot longer. I doubt most games released in the last three years (which seems to be the time they looked at) that made no money are still on there.

I mean releasing a game on Steam is not free. You pay a $100 fee per game to Valve to release on their store.

That at least seems to stop the flood of shovelware a tiny bit.

With VN makers and Midjourney, you can pump out a half way decent VN in no time. I've honestly thought of doing a cheesy one for my DnD players as their story recap each session, but I already spend so much time on the rest of the game...