How much do Survivors-like subgenre games earn: the state of the niche and developers' comments

Games similar to Vampire Survivors have finally emerged as a distinct genre. Auto-shooters, bullet heaven — it has many names. Today we will discuss the secret to the success of such projects, how much representatives from this niche earn, and also share exclusive insights from developers on their production specifics.

In November 2025, Microsoft held an Xbox Partner Preview presentation. One of the announcements was a new game called Vampire Crawlers from the studio Poncle, renowned for the indie hit Vampire Survivors. The most notable part of the trailer was the comment from the developers stating their intention to "milk their key brand until they turn blue."

Poncle isn't joking. The explosive success of Vampire Survivors has created a new genre and allowed the studio's founder, Luca Galante, to launch a publishing brand.

We will further discuss:

• Luca Galante's path to global success and the components that transformed Vampire Survivors;
• revenue, sales, and other metrics of key successors: Brotato, Ball x Pit, Survivor.io, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, and others;
• the state of the Survivors-like niche, including the median revenue for projects in this subgenre;
• the views of MidHard Games and HeroCraft on the development and future of the genre.