Consultant Says ‘Vulnerable' Indie Devs Overpaid For Marketing – Kotaku

Consultant Says ‘Vulnerable’ Indie Devs Overpaid For Marketing  Kotaku

Indie developers are complaining about a content creator's expensive marketing package, which apparently results in little, if any, return on investment For every indie game success story, there’s an unquantifiable number of indie game flops. Balatro, Meccha Chameleon, Stardew Valley–these are the exceptions to the rule; outliers in an overcrowded market. SteamDB estimates that 18,933 games have been released on the Steam storefront in 2026. That means roughly an average of 72 new games have dropped on Steam every day this year. Over 2,600 of these games have zero reviews. Over 7,600 have only netted 1-9 reviews. Yet, 978 of these 18,933 games have over 500 reviews. A bit of quick math reveals that 60 percent of games on Steam get no more than 9 user reviews and many get none at all.

Meanwhile, roughly 5 percent are breaking the 500 Steam review threshold. But how many of those games in that 5 percent are AAA titles, with deep-pocketed publishers backing them? SteamDB estimates that only 364 of those 978 games are tagged as indies–so, roughly 37 percent. And, yes, it’s debatable if some of these actually qualify as indies. This is all a long-winded intro designed to justify a statement that anyone with half a brain would have already agreed with: getting eyes on your indie game is a