40% of the games released on Steam in 2025 did not even recoup the $100 spent on their registration
The indie apocalypse continues.
Polish indie developer Artur Smiarowski shared sales analytics of games published on Steam over the past year, citing the Gamalytic service.
By this point in 2025, 13,000 games have been published on the platform. For comparison, a total of 18,000 products launched throughout the previous year.
Of all the published titles, 8% managed to reach the $100,000 mark.
Meanwhile, 40% of games could not recover the $100 registration fee that Steam refunds when a game achieves $1,000 in revenue.
Also, when compared to 2024, it is very noticeable that average playtime, average revenue per project, and, significantly, the total revenue across all projects have decreased this year.
As Artur noted, “We might have hit the peak of the golden indie rush last year.”