Analytics: Only 7.2% of indie horror games in 2024 on Steam were successful
The past year was eventful for indie horror games on Steam. Hundreds of new games appeared on the Valve platform, yet only a handful achieved success. This conclusion was reached by gaming marketer Dmitriy Afanasyev, who studied the situation in this niche.
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In his research, Afanasyev relied on data from the VG Insights service. Below are some figures from his material.
- In 2024, 778 horror games from indie developers were released on Steam.
- Only 56 of them (7.2%) received more than 500 user reviews. Afanasyev considers these projects successful.
- 59% of successful indie horror games generated at least $200,000 in gross revenue. Only 2% managed to earn over a million dollars.
- 36 out of 56 successful indie horror games are single-player. The remaining 20 games include cooperative or multiplayer modes.
- Focusing solely on successful single-player indie horror games, 60% of them boast gross revenue over $200,000. The share of games with such income among successful cooperative/multiplayer indie horror games is 55%.
- Steam users rate indie horror games higher than AAA-level games. In 2024, the average rating for indie horror games was 81%, while AAA games had 78%.