Current Events > Steam is looking grim for indie developers. 82% games make less than min. wage

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.pcgamer.com/gdcs-realistic-talk-about-game-sales-on-steam-paints-a-grim-picture/

"So here's the thing. In February, around 850 games launched on Steam, which is about 40 a day," said Mike Rose, the indie publisher behind downhill biking game Descenders. "About 82 percent of those didn't even make minimum wage ... by this I mean, the money that came out of 82 percent of the games that came out on Steam would not support a singular person on American minimum wage, which I had to Google."

That's a sobering way to begin a talk, but it's something Rose has done before. Earlier this year he gave a similar talk, "It's time to be realistic about PC sales figures," with slides you can look at here. His talk at GDC includes slightly updated data but essentially the same conclusion: the average game on Steam simply doesn't sell anymore, and the quantity of games being released has made the platform more like Apple's app store, where it's increasingly difficult to stand out.

This isn't the first time we've heard things are rough on Steam. It's something we've written about before, between covering the more than 6,000 games that came out on Steam last year and publishing a developer survey of thoughts and concerns about Steam. Rose's talk and depressing number after depressing number don't really apply to the "big" games that land on Steam, whether those games are breakouts from indie creators or huge franchises from huge companies. But they do paint a grim picture for indies hoping to break onto the scene.

Seems like the bubble has burst for indie developers.
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they are moving to switch now
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It would help if their games were worth buying.
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I don't see how people enjoy indie games
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Would help if most of them didn't just flip unity store assets and call it a game
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Not really. Most indie games actually worth a damn do fairly well. I'd say about 90% of the ones that do bad are shovelware or trash looking for a quick buck using free assets. There are bound to be a few good ones that slip through the cracks, unfortunately.
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I don't think 'good' or even 'great' is good enough for an indie developer these days. It needs to somehow both be outstanding and noticed by enough people to gain momentum. No easy task when you're competing with thousands of games.
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Games are so much easier to make than they were 10-20 years ago. There are just way too many games in the market and people can't play them all. Basically you have to have talent AND get lucky if you want to succeed in the video game industry (Unless you want to be an overworked codemonkey for a big name company). Betting you can live off of being a video game creator is a risky move like betting you can live on being a rockstar. If you are an indie developer you should do it for fun and not expect to live off it.
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OwlRammer posted...

they are moving to switch now

Yep
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In February, around 850 games launched on Steam

so assuming that these all came from different developers(because let's be honest, only asset flipping "developers" would excrement more than 1 game per month), 18% of 850 is 153 which means 153 developers.

sounds good enough to me.
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Indie games are shit games. Out of the hundreds of them on steam, like 3 are good.
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Yeah, luck is also a big factor. If your game gets noticed by a big enough YouTuber and they like it, you're pretty much set. I'm guessing Northernlion has sold a few thousand copies of Slay the Spire for the developers at this point.

EDIT: A few thousand might be an exaggeration, but definitely a few houndred.
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About 80% of those games are shit too though.
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That seems about right for a platform as popular as Steam is.

OwlRammer posted...

they are moving to switch now

LMAO

indie games are garbage 99% of the time

Mystery_Mission posted...

indie games are garbage 99% of the time

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PC gaming itself is in a dark age now, ever since the Intel/AMD CPU crisis and the ongoing GPU shortage thanks to crypto vultures. But there also just isn't any soul in any of the Steam sales. I haven't bought anything for at least a year.

It's not just random no-name crap that's flopping. I remember basically any indie sequel (outside of maybe Original Sin 2) are selling significantly less than their sequel a few years ago. Banner Saga was hit by this hard.
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Darmik posted...

It's not just random no-name crap that's flopping. I remember basically any indie sequel (outside of maybe Original Sin 2) are selling significantly less than their sequel a few years ago. Banner Saga was hit by this hard.

Banner Saga didn't have the same impact as Divinity. They also released their game for free on Xbox Live Gold for the release iirc.
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tell that to Stardew Valley's creator.
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Darmik posted...

It's not just random no-name crap that's flopping. I remember basically any indie sequel (outside of maybe Original Sin 2) are selling significantly less than their sequel a few years ago. Banner Saga was hit by this hard.

no different than big name publishers.

eg. according to steamspy:
south park 1: almost 2.5m
south park 2: barely 300k
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An indie game has to go viral/become a meme to get the $. If I was a developer I'd try to do something completely stupid and off-the-wall, like Loaf of Bread Simulator 2018.
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Smashingpmkns posted...

Darmik posted...

It's not just random no-name crap that's flopping. I remember basically any indie sequel (outside of maybe Original Sin 2) are selling significantly less than their sequel a few years ago. Banner Saga was hit by this hard.

Banner Saga didn't have the same impact as Divinity. They also released their game for free on Xbox Live Gold for the release iirc.

Well that's the point. I don't recall Banner Saga 2 being a disappointment critically. Original Sin 2 was extremely critically acclaimed and seen as a GOTY contender but that's not a realistic expectation for most developers.

_BIueMonk posted...

tell that to Stardew Valley's creator.

There could be a whole lot of Stardew Valley's out there nobody knows about.

AsucaHayashi posted...

Darmik posted...

It's not just random no-name crap that's flopping. I remember basically any indie sequel (outside of maybe Original Sin 2) are selling significantly less than their sequel a few years ago. Banner Saga was hit by this hard.

no different than big name publishers.

eg. according to steamspy:
south park 1: almost 2.5m
south park 2: barely 300k

South Park is on uPlay as well to be fair. But yeah I think it is hitting AAA developers a little bit too. Just not as severe.
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Darmik posted...

I don't think 'good' or even 'great' is good enough for an indie developer these days. It needs to somehow both be outstanding and noticed by enough people to gain momentum. No easy task when you're competing with thousands of games.

I don't entirely disagree but I certainly don't like how a lot of indie devs are inferring it's somehow Steam's fault for having too many games. Yeah, it sucks that it's hard to stand out but that's just marketing. AAA games only sell as well as they do because they're either genuinley great games, graphically/cinematically impressive or they've had multiple million dollar ad campaigns shoving the title in the face of the mainstream for months (or a mixure of any of those).

It's not like people purchase every single AAA release, either. Infact, they'd be in the exact same position if there were more AAA studios, it's probably a big reason EA and the like go around gobbling up (and ultimately murdering) lesser successful ones.
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Broseph_Stalin posted...

That seems about right for a platform as popular as Steam is.

OwlRammer posted...

they are moving to switch now

LMAO

PS4 also. Sony is letting that garbage on their market too
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Better to have a free market than to go back to the old way of doing business, where amateur programmers would spend years of their lives toiling away, trying to break into the industry while making no money at all from their hobby, having to work two jobs at once.

That's the economics of pursuing a career everyone wants.
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Bringit posted...

Darmik posted...

I don't think 'good' or even 'great' is good enough for an indie developer these days. It needs to somehow both be outstanding and noticed by enough people to gain momentum. No easy task when you're competing with thousands of games.

I don't entirely disagree but I certainly don't like how a lot of indie devs are inferring it's somehow Steam's fault for having too many games. Yeah, it sucks that it's hard to stand out but that's just marketing. AAA games only sell as well as they do because they're either genuinley great games, graphically/cinematically impressive or they've had multiple million dollar ad campaigns shoving the title in the face of the mainstream for months (or a mixure of any of those).

It's not like people purchase every single AAA release, either. Infact, they'd be in the exact same position if there were more AAA studios, it's probably a big reason EA and the like go around gobbling up (and ultimately murdering) lesser successful ones.

Yeah I don't really think it's the fault of Steam. It's just the reality of the current market. I don't think there's any one thing at fault. I'm given games for free I'll never have the time to play. There's just so much out there.
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fair next
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It's called market saturation.

This happened to the Apple and Google app stores years ago. Months of work and you're lucky to break even...but you likely won't.

This happens to every industry. Initial success gives hope to developers and everyone joined in and then everyone was release games and there aren't enough customers to buy them. Every now and then an indie game breaks though, but over 80% will fail.
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Maybe they should stop making crappy games.
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I'll add that Steam as a whole makes more money every year. So people are actually buying more games than ever on the platform. But it's probably like the top 10-20% of games that make up the majority of the sales.

This is stuff actually talked about in the Game Developers Conference too. This is something that potentially impacts every indie developer.
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meestermj posted...

It would help if their games were worth buying.

Ben_Ruggiero posted...

I don't see how people enjoy indie games

Vyrulisse posted...

Would help if most of them didn't just flip unity store assets and call it a game

NINExATExSEVEN posted...

Indie games are shit games. Out of the hundreds of them on steam, like 3 are good.

Smashingpmkns posted...

About 80% of those games are shit too though.

Maybe if more indie games had less "retro graphics" and chiptune music they'd stand more

Shovel Knight is the primary exception because it relied on more than nostalgia to be a good game
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Maybe don't bank on releasing a generic product into a saturated market for a living...
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smoke_break posted...

An indie game has to go viral/become a meme to get the $. If I was a developer I'd try to do something completely stupid and off-the-wall, like Loaf of Bread Simulator 2018.

Basically, the most prudent solution is to simply make something Youtubers can meme about, which is beyond sad.

Though back to the subject at hand, it's not surprising. Steam allows so much trash on their store, that "indie" has gained a negative connotation. It's the price we pay for making games easier to develop; now that you've lowered the barrier to entry, you have a lot of people pooping out "games" that would have usually never been allowed to see the light of day, or would have been too difficult to attempt in the first place. There's a darn good reason Nintendo enforced their quality control policies after the Atari crash.
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Blame over-saturation and poor quality, not Steam. If your game is good enough to make money, it will. Case in point is stuff like Stardew Valley, Darkest Dungeon, FTL. If your indie game doesn't make money, it's just not good enough--or just lost in the shuffle.

It's like being a film maker and blaming Walmart because your movie failed at the box office and Blu-ray/DVD sales.

Obsidian is one of the most critically acclaimed studios out there.

They went from 1.3 million sales for Pillars of Eternity to 329k for Tyranny. That's a huge drop. How much will PoE2 sell?
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Darmik posted...

Obsidian is one of the most critically acclaimed studios out there.

They went from 1.3 million sales for Pillars of Eternity to 329k for Tyranny. That's a huge drop. How much will PoE2 sell?

That's not really a fair comparison honestly. I'm a huge Obsidian fangirl and I didn't even know Tyranny was being made yet alone when it launched until after it did. Paradox did them zero favors in marketing with Tyranny. Many people STILL don't know it even exists. Also Tyranny was more of their typical mercenary development. Paradox wanted it and they made it, it clearly didn't have the same love that they put into Pillars and while it was a good game, it wasn't amazing so that also effected how it sold.

Anyway, Pillars 2 will do fine. They got more funding than they did with the original and it's already known and being talked about.
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Indie gamers actually benefit off from high profile youtube "Let's players", which I think more indie developers should be trying to clamor over.
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That is because there so much crap on Steam . A lot of that shit would have been a free Flash game 10 years ago.
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Steamworld Dig 2 was probably one of the bigger indie games last year. Critically acclaimed sequel to a hugely popular indie game.

Only sold 43k on Steam. Most indie games do not have anywhere close to the exposure that game got.
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ColdOne666 posted...

Maybe they should stop making crappy games.

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Darmik posted...

Steamworld Dig 2 was probably one of the bigger indie games last year. Critically acclaimed sequel to a hugely popular indie game.

Only sold 43k on Steam. Most indie games do not have anywhere close to the exposure that game got.

I bought it on Switch. You can also get it on 3DS, PS4, and Vita.
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Steam is seeing the same thing that the Atari 2600 did right before the 1984 video game crash. A glut of shit software.
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Darmik posted...

I don't think 'good' or even 'great' is good enough for an indie developer these days. It needs to somehow both be outstanding and noticed by enough people to gain momentum. No easy task when you're competing with thousands of games.

Ha, no.

You should look up some blogs and interviews by Jeff Vogel, the one man behind spiderweb software, indie before indie was a thing. Hes realistic about his market and niche and makes a good living making games for that audience.
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TC shut up and stop trying to blame Steam.

make good games
make good money.

if they dont like it they can go sell on Origin or some shit

wtf is this topic.
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Also a lot of "indie" games see something get popular and try to copy it. It's literally the AAA market on a smaller scale and once people have the original it takes something truly great to make them get a clone.

Indie developers that forge their own path and make a good, different game tend to get more success.
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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

Darmik posted...

Steamworld Dig 2 was probably one of the bigger indie games last year. Critically acclaimed sequel to a hugely popular indie game.

Only sold 43k on Steam. Most indie games do not have anywhere close to the exposure that game got.

I bought it on Switch. You can also get it on 3DS, PS4, and Vita.

This article is about Steam. A lot of indie developers have been saying their games are selling way more on Switch.

_BIueMonk posted...

TC shut up and stop trying to blame Steam.

make good games
make good money.

if they dont like it they can go sell on Origin or some shit

wtf is this topic.

Err? Where am I blaming Steam. Why are you upset?

Vyrulisse posted...

Also a lot of "indie" games see something get popular and try to copy it. It's literally the AAA market on a smaller scale and once people have the original it takes something truly great to make them get a clone.

Indie developers that forge their own path and make a good, different game tend to get more success.

Unfortunately it's really not that easy.
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We really do need another video game crash. It destroyed needlessly greedy shenanigans then, it can do so again.
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The article is about Steam sure, but why are you using an example where the game in question can be purchased on many other gaming platforms?

SWD2 may have done exceptionally well when you compare all available platforms.
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