The gaming industry is experiencing a remarkable transformation in indie development approaches, marked by the growing adoption of the “think small, ship often” philosophy. This strategic shift reflects a maturing understanding that success often stems from creating focused, compact experiences rather than attempting to rival AAA productions.

The impact of this approach is evident in the numbers: indie games captured 31% of Steam’s revenue in 2023, proving that smaller games can achieve significant commercial success ¹. This impressive market penetration reflects not just changing consumer preferences, but also the emergence of more sustainable development practices that don’t require massive studio resources.

The trend toward smaller projects has gained momentum as developers segment their ambitious visions into more manageable undertakings ^2,3,4,5. Industry thought leaders have endorsed this strategy, with renowned marketing strategist Chris Zukowski expressing strong optimism about the potential of smaller games ⁶. This methodical approach enables developers to validate concepts, incorporate community feedback, and enhance their capabilities progressively, rather than committing extensive resources to a single, lengthy project.

This strategic pivot toward smaller productions represents a pragmatic response to the intensifying competition within the indie space. As Steam’s platform becomes increasingly crowded with new releases, developers have discovered that focused, polished experiences offer a more effective path to market differentiation and community building ⁷.

At Game Oracle, this evolution in development strategies has prompted us to investigate a crucial question: historically, how many games does an indie developer typically release before achieving success on Steam?

Aligned with our mission to establish realistic benchmarks for indie developers, this analysis explores the correlation between release frequency and platform success. While we’ll examine the rare instances of first-game breakthroughs, our focus remains on understanding the more common trajectory of incremental growth and establishing practical milestones for aspiring developers.

Defining Success

Before we dive into the data, we need to define what success looks like. Success is always subjective and can vary based on individual goals, but it is not a stretch of the immagination that most people associate the number of sales with success.

As we’ve discussed in our article about estimated revenue, you cannot actually establish the number of sales made by a game on Steam, but you can get a rough idea by looking at the number of reviews a game has received. The more reviews a game has, the more sales it likely made.

We’re going to set a few threholds for success based on the number of reviews a game has received. The thresholds and our reasoning are listed in the table below:

Reviews	Estimated Revenue*	Reasoning
10	$900 - $2,700	A meaningful benchmark that, while not necessarily indicating commercial success, provides valuable feedback about your game and enables reflection and growth as a developer.
100	$9,000 - $27,000	A notable commercial milestone for an indie developer or small team. While not guaranteeing financial independence, the revenue can help fund future projects and marks the beginning of a diverse, engaged fanbase from which to learn and grow.
1,000	$162,000 - $486,000	This milestone represents the ultimate achievement for many developers: a commercially successful game that provides sufficient financial stability to pursue full-time indie game development.

*Estimated revenue was calculated using the average price of a game on Steam, which was $8.99 at the time of writing.

Important Caveats

Like any statistical analysis, we have had to make some important decisions to avoid generating misleading figures. So in the interest of transprency, lets take a moment to highlight some caveats to keep in mind as we delve into the data:

AAA Studios and Publishers

For this analysis we’re primarily interested in indie developers. Large AAA studios skew the statistics with their massive marketing budgets and established fanbases. We’ve created a list of AAA studios and publishers that we use to filter out games from our dataset.

However, it is important to note that this list is not exhaustive and it’s impossible to guarantee that all AAA games have been removed from the dataset. You can find this list in our methodologies at the end of the article.

The Eras of Steam

Steam has changed a lot over the years and this has had a significant impact on the number of developers using the platform. Steam can roughly be broken up into three eras: the early days, the Greenlight era, and the current Steam Direct era.

The Steam Direct era began in 2017 with the introduction of direct publication with a $100 fee and a reduced approval process. This has made it easier for developers to release games on Steam and has resulted in a significant increase in the number of games being released.

As a result, the developers that started before the Steam Direct era had a significant advantage that could skew our data. To account for this, we have filtered out developers with releases before 2017 - in fact we found that 80% of indie developers only started releasing on Steam after 2017!

Fake Games and Asset Flips

The high incidence of fake games and asset flips on Steam is well known ^8,9,10,11. These games can negatively skew our data and make it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions.

A common pattern for developers that partake in this practice is a high publication rate. Therefore, we have removed developers with extremely high publication rates from our dataset. However, we cannot guarantee that all purposefully low quality games have been removed.

With the above applied, our analysis is based on a dataset of 48,876 indie developers.

80% of indie developers on Steam released their first game after Steam Direct was introduced in 2017

Unicorns

Okay, we need to discuss the elephant in the room. We all know a few indie developers who released their first game and it was a massive success. We’re going to call these success stories the “unicorns” because the reality is, they are the exception and not the rule. While these stories are inspiring and exciting, they are not representative of the typical indie developer’s journey. The vast majority of developers will need to release multiple games before achieving significant success on Steam.

We’re not just saying this to be discouraging; it’s a reflection of the competitive nature of the market and the need for developers to refine their skills, build a community, and learn from each release.

The unicorns are outliers and the data from Steam backs this up. Using our database of every game on Steam (see the methods at the end of our blog for details), we analyzed the number of developers that reach our top benchmark (1,000 reviews) with their first game. We found that since 2017 only 4.9% of developers achieve this milestone with their debut release. Thats only 2,373 developers gaining unicorn status.

Only ~5% of developers reach 1,000 reviews with their first release on Steam

In fact, the likelihood of achieving this milestone has been decreasing in recent years. The graph below shows the number of games released on Steam since 2017 (top), the number of developers that reach 1,000 reviews with their first game (middle), and the number of unicorn releases as a percentage of games released each year (bottom). Although their was an upward trend in the number of unicorns from 2017 through to the pandemic, the number of unicorn releases as a percentage of total releases has a strong downward trend (Note: the data for 2024 is incomplete).

The data is clear: while it’s possible to achieve success with your first game, it’s not the norm. The vast majority of developers will need to release multiple games before reaching significant commercial success on Steam. But how many games does it take?

If You’re Not a Unicorn, How Many Games Does it Take?

To answer this question, we analysed all the other indie developers on Steam excluding the unicorns. Surprisingly, only 1 in 5 of the 40,000 indie developers with a game released on Steam have gone on to release more games! So the majority of developers never release a second game! This left us with only 6,009 developers to study the impact of multiple releases. We dove a little deeper and looked at the probability of these developers releasing up to 5 games, shown in the graph below:

It is immediately apparent that the likelihood of continuing to release games decreases massively from the second to the third release, falling to as low as 35% of developers releasing a third game. This trend continues with each subsequent release, with only around 7% of developers releasing a fifth game.

Only 1 in 5 indie developers who do not succeed with their first game will go on to make subsequent releases

Keep in mind that it is rare for a developer to persist and release more than two titles on Steam. However, we decided to look at the probability of these developers reaching 10, 100 and 1,000 reviews with each subsequent release.

The results are incredibly reassuring:

• From the second release onwards, the probability of reaching the first target of 10 reviews is 80%, meaning there is a very high chance of receiving feedback on your game.
• If you make it to your fourth release, there is a 50% chance of reaching 100 reviews. That means by the time you get to your fourth game, the chance of reaching this significant milestone is a coin flip.
• Finally, by your fifth release, you have just over a 1 in 10 chance of reaching 1,000 reviews; a significant milestone that represents a commercially successful game.

We have to remember that the sample size for developers with more than three releases in this cohort is small, so the data is not as reliable as we would like. However, the trends are clear and we can be confident that the more games you release, the higher the chance of reaching 1,000 reviews. In fact, you’re twice as likely to find commercial success with your fifth release than you are with your first.

Those who make it to their fifth release are twice as likely to find commercial success compared to those that only release a single game

Conclusion: Each Release Brings You Closer to Success

The findings of our analysis underscore the importance of persistence and iterative development in the indie game space. While the allure of immediate success with a debut release is undeniable, the reality is that the vast majority of developers will need to release multiple games to achieve significant commercial success on Steam. The unicorns who achieve this milestone with their first game are the exception rather than the rule, and their stories should be viewed as inspirational outliers rather than the standard.

Steam is not just a lottery and success is dependent on a number of factors, including the quality of your game, your marketing strategy, and the support of your community. What surprised us the most during this analysis is how few developers persist after their first release. The data shows that only 1 in 5 developers who do not achieve success with their first game will go on to release a second game. This is a critical point: the decision to continue developing games after an initial setback is a significant factor in determining long-term success.

Perhaps what differentiates the successful indie game developers from the rest is not just talent or luck, but resilience and a willingness to learn from each release. The iterative process of game development enables developers to refine their skills, build a community, and adapt to the evolving demands of the market. By embracing this journey and committing to the long game, indie developers can increase their chances of achieving commercial success on Steam.

Methodology

You can find additional information about our methods here.

References

References

1. Konboy | The Era of the Indie Game
2. Reddit | A big game project vs many little game projects?
3. Thomas Brush | Should you REALLY make small games?
4. BiteMe Games | Small games win big, here's how to make them
5. GamesIndustry.biz | 'Singles, not albums': A guide to making smaller games
6. Game Developer | Practical indie marketing advice with Steam expert Chris Zukowski
7. Thomas Brush | Is It The End Of The Indie Game Industry (As We Know It)?
8. Dualshockers | Steam Was Just Hit With A Wave Of Fake Games, But How Did It Happen?
9. Neowin | Valve has removed a number of fake games from Steam disguised as Palworld and Helldivers 2
10. PC Gamer | Steam sends 90 low-effort asset-flips and bootleg games off to the great trashcan fire in the sky
11. Vice | ‘Asset Flip Simulator’ Highlights a Huge Problem on Steam