How much do games in the Survivors-like subgenre 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'll discuss the secret to these projects' success, how much representatives of this niche earn, and share exclusive insights from developers about the specifics of their production.

In November 2025, Microsoft held an Xbox Partner Preview presentation. One of the announcements was the new game Vampire Crawlers from the studio Poncle, which gained fame thanks to the indie hit Vampire Survivors. The most striking part of the trailer was the developers' remark that they intend to "milk their key brand until it turns blue."

Poncle isn’t joking. The explosive success of Vampire Survivors spawned a distinct 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 followers: Brotato, Ball x Pit, Survivor.io, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, and others;
• the state of the Survivors-like niche, including the median revenue of projects in this subgenre;
• what MidHard Games and HeroCraft think about the development and future of the genre.