Sales of indie games on Steam are falling

Against the background of the growing number of games from independent developers on Steam, the number of their sales is declining.

This was announced the other day in the official Twitter feed of the Steam Spy service by its author Sergey Galenkin.

When comparing the sales results for the first 24 days of April last year and April this year, it turns out that the number of indie games on Steam has grown by almost 50% over the year – from 1,352 titles to 2,099. At the same time, the number of their total sales decreased by almost two million: from 14.9 million in April 2015 to 13 million this year.

The median sales of an indie game a year ago were 5,400 copies, this year – 2,800. However, games included in the Top 10 indie can count, as a year ago, on 100 thousand copies per month.

If we talk about money, the total monthly income of indie titles also fell significantly – by almost $ 30 million. This is a big figure, considering that this April such games earned $ 128 million.

The situation with falling sales with a general glut of the market is true not only for the indie segment, but also for the entire gaming. The total number of games of all genres for the year on Steam has grown from 2675 thousand to 3677. At the same time, sales fell by $185 million to $365 million this year. And this is when the average price drops by $1.4 to $9.9.

It’s funny that games in “Early Access” did not feel such a trend. Conversely. Their sales have also grown significantly – from 925,000 to 1.8 million – and revenues – from $16 million to almost $26 million. But their number is still quite small: at the moment, only about 300 games are within Early Access.

The number of refands, as noted by Galenkin, is small.

Source: SteamSpy