The budget for 80% of games released on Steam since 2022 does not exceed one million dollars — analytics

Developers rarely publicly disclose the budget for their games. The lack of official data prompted the analytical portal HushCrasher to try to estimate the cost of creating games distributed on Steam.

When estimating the budget, HushCrasher considered the experience of game studios and publishers, the number of specialists mentioned in the credits, the number of supported languages, and “dozens of other variables.” According to their analysis, the margin of error was about 10%.

In their research, analysts focused only on titles released on Steam from 2022 to 2025 that received at least 10 reviews. This amounted to 19,634 titles.

Here are the main findings.

• The budget for most of the games analyzed by HushCrasher ranges from $10,000 to $1 million. More specifically, developers on Steam typically create games for $50,000 to $200,000.
• Only 20% of games had a budget exceeding $1 million.

• Publishers released 23% of the analyzed games. The rest were self-published by developers. Only half of the games published under publishers had a budget exceeding $100,000.

• On average, games with 3D graphics have a budget 16 times larger than those with 2D graphics.

• Only 16% of all releases from 2022-2025 are multiplayer games. However, if we consider only games with a budget exceeding $10 million, they comprise 50%.

• “Cheaper” games are often made with Unity. For instance, this engine was chosen by the creators of 60% of games with budgets below $100,000 and 62% of games with budgets from $100,000 to $1 million. However, it is also popular among developers with budgets of $1-10 million, at 48% usage.
• Godot was the foundation for 8% of games with budgets under $100,000. Another 8% of such games were developed using GameMaker.
• Unreal Engine is typically used in the mid and upper segments. It was used in 41% of games with budgets of $1-10 million and accounts for 60% of games with budgets of $10-50 million.
• For games with budgets exceeding $50 million, the engine breakdown is as follows: 47% use Unreal Engine, 7% use Unity, and the remaining 46% are created on other engines, mainly proprietary ones.