Flying Oak Games' Thomas Altenburger: 5% of games made 90% of all sales on Steam in 2020

Thomas Altenburger, head of Flying Oak Games, the indie studio behind ScourgeBringer and NeuroVoider, has shared some insightful stats re sales on Steam in 2020.

“Steam broke its record last year: 9,279 releases in 2020,” Altenburger claims, based on “some research” he’s made. “That’s twice from 2016.”

Altenburger estimates sound about right, although it’s difficult to fully verify them. In any case, Statista cites different but comparable stats: 10,263 titles released last year (versus 4,207 in 2016). Steam DB‘s estimate (9,776 games released in 2020) is also very close to Altenburger’s data.

The developer also arrives at the striking conclusion that there was a new release on Steam happening every 53 minutes in 2020.

And here’re some findings on the sales data for 2020:

• 50% of games sold less than 640 units
• 75% of games sold less than 2800 units
• 5% of games made 90% of all the sales.