Stores and publishing

We have prepared a detailed list of games from Russian or formerly Russian teams whose projects achieved significant sales on Steam this year. The list is substantial. As a bonus, there's also a list of the runners-up

The game reached this milestone a week after the announcement.

It will start appearing not only at the top of the search results page but also at the bottom.

Analyzing the situation in the domestic digital PC distribution market: the key players, their approaches to monetization and user acquisition, as well as the challenges they face that hinder them from competing with the global platform monopolist

The majority of the amount was generated by the company over the past three months

Now it ranks 610th on the list of most anticipated games on the platform.

The purchase cost $103.8 million

At the end of October, Bloomberg reported, citing sources, that Microsoft aimed to increase the profitability of its gaming division to 30%—a very high figure. Two months later, the corporation refuted the rumors

This conclusion was reached by analysts from Alinea Analytics.

This conclusion was reached by analysts from Alinea Analytics.

As we approach Christmas, we continue to summarize the year with experts in the gaming market. Next up is an interview with Lev Kobelev and Alexander Barabanov, authors of the analytical service SteamTrender.

Steam has introduced a special page featuring personal summaries for the year 2025. In addition to individual statistics, you can view some general figures related to the platform. For example, how the total gaming time of Steam users was distributed among projects from different years.

The Game Awards took place on December 11. It's the perfect time to summarize and take a look at the games that gained the most from the show. Today's article features a lot of data and charts on the sales of the winners, wishlists of announced titles, and the growth of metrics for older releases in the wake of new sequel trailers

On the evening of December 16, GFA Games released the multiplayer shooter PIONER in early access: in Rostelecom's store for residents of Russia and Belarus, and on Steam for residents of other countries. The game's debut was less than stellar.

Traditionally, as January approaches, we summarize the outgoing year with representatives from gaming and related companies. Up next is an interview with Sergey Zanin, co-founder and CEO of Alawar.

The last few days have been notable for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 due to an increase in online activity on Steam. It has reached a noticeable level, although not a record one.

Exactly one month ago, on November 15, 2025, the full release of Escape from Tarkov took place. On this occasion, we decided to turn to VG Insights data and take a look at the extraction shooter's performance on Steam.

Ahead of the New Year, the SteamDB service shared its observations on Steam. It estimated that in the incomplete year of 2025, a record number of games were released on Valve's platform—19.2 thousand. However, nearly half of them attracted almost no interest.

Matt Booty, the leader of Xbox Game Studios, has indicated that the company is consistently assessing its pricing strategy for new game releases

The game has been absent from the Google Play Store since August 2020.

The founder of the analytical service GameDiscoverCo, Simon Carless, examined how the release of games on Steam unfolded after leaving Early Access in 2025. He discovered that the majority of them failed to surpass their initial performance.

Simon Carless, the founder of the analytical service GameDiscoverCo, reviewed the releases of games on Steam that exited early access in 2025. He found that the vast majority of them failed to surpass their initial performance

Shuhei Yoshida, previously the leader of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, has stated that game developers in Japan are struggling to match the speed of their counterparts in China.

Veterans from PlayStation London Studio, Disney Interactive, and Square Enix have established a new studio.

Recently, the Google Play and RuStore teams shared their lists of the best games of the year. Now it's Apple's turn.

The number of game copies sold in the network's stores is not disclosed

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 marked the most significant third-party release on Xbox Game Pass in 2023

Last year, VK announced ambitious plans to turn VK Play into a "single entry point for gamers in Russia." At that time, it started selling Steam keys on the platform and soon allowed for topping up the Steam wallet. Now, VK Play has taken it a step further.

On PC, November was marked by Europa Universalis V and several other strategy and simulation games. However, Black Ops 7 performed poorly on Steam and didn't achieve outstanding results (for the series) on consoles either. All of this is covered in the new edition of the monthly gaming market review, with data and charts included

Veteran of the gaming industry Ron Gilbert, creator of the Monkey Island universe, gave an interview to Ars Technica. During the conversation, he touched on the topic of game funding and admitted that finding money has become more difficult than before.

These figures were shared with App2Top by the studio "Our Games" and its parent company Astrum Entertainment in honor of their win at the RuStore 2025 awards. Their game "World of Domovoys" won in the category "Family Hit".

CD Projekt's GOG platform has expressed its support for the arthouse indie game Horses after Valve decided not to offer it on the Steam store

Last week, VK announced the winners of the RuStore 2025 awards, highlighting the most outstanding games and applications in the mobile store over the past year.

According to reports, Valve, the major force behind PC gaming, has allegedly restricted content on its Steam platform in response to demands from the Russian government

Outside of China, the media hardly covers the activities of Zhejiang Century Huatong, even though it's one of the fastest-growing gaming companies today. In a new business profile, we will delve into the reasons behind its success, key hits like Whiteout Survival, and its regulatory challenges

It took her 48 hours from the moment of the announcement

Of Ash and Steel is an action RPG in the spirit of Gothic, released on November 24 by the Russian studio Fire & Frost and the publisher tinyBuild. According to the analytics service VG Insights, the game is doing quite well, at least on Steam.

Phil Spencer from Microsoft has indicated that hours spent on Xbox Game Pass cloud have increased.

This figure was cited by analysts from VG Insights in a publication on LinkedIn. They provided data as of November 24

We continue our "Investor/Publisher Wanted" segment, where indie teams share about themselves and their projects. Next up is KORO GAMES, which, in addition to developing the puzzle game Greeded that we've already talked about, is working on the noir puzzle game Death Sketchbook

It's been over two years of failing to come to an agreement with Steam

The publishing director of Baldur's Gate 3 believes that having a large budget does not necessarily lead to poor quality in video games. However, they expressed that the "public company model is broken" within the entertainment sector.

Everything supposedly happens without warnings or evidence.

Everything supposedly happens without warnings or evidence.

Valve, the prominent developer of PC games, has stated that the price point of its newly unveiled Steam Machine hardware will offer consumers a "good deal."

Microsoft, the leading tech company, may be considering another price hike for its Xbox gaming consoles

At the end of October, the cooperative multiplayer game Superball by the Chinese indie studio Pathea Games was released. The studio is best known for their life simulation hit, My Time at Portia. The project took a long time to reach a full release and is still experiencing difficulties. We spoke with Yao Liu, one of the key developers of Superball, about the project’s journey and the hopes of its developers.

At the end of October, the cooperative multiplayer game Superball was released by the Chinese indie studio Pathea Games, which is well known today for the life simulation hit My Time at Portia. The project took a long time to reach a full release and is still facing difficulties. We spoke with Yao Liu, one of the key developers of Superball, about the project's journey and the developers' hopes for the future.

Google Play has announced its Best Of lists for 2025, highlighting Pokémon TCG Pocket, Candy Crush Solitaire, Disco Elysium, and Dredge among the standout titles in the Best Games of 2025 awards.

The VK Group of companies also reported on its finances. It released a report summarizing the results of the first nine months of 2025. Among other things, VK highlighted the growth of its mobile store metrics