40% of Steam Games in 2025 Earned Less Than $100

Every year, the number of video games released on Steam grows at an incredible pace. According to SteamDB, there were 1,713 new titles in 2014, but by 2024 that number had climbed to 18,602.

If the trend continues, 2025 will likely set a new record, but this steady rise in releases has created a clear problem of market saturation, making it harder for players to find quality games and for developers to get noticed.

RELATED

Valve Bans Forced Advertisements and Advertising-Based Business Models on Steam

Valve has updated the Steamworks documentation to clarify the types of advertising and promotions allowed on Steam, explicitly banning advertising-based business models that are often seen in mobile games, especially the kind that force players to watch ads to continue playing.

40% of Games on Steam Don’t Even Recover the $100 Listing Fee

According to the company Gamalytic (via GamesRadar+), an estimated 12,732 titles have already been released on Steam in 2025. These figures are based on an “estimation methodology,” since only Valve has access to the official numbers.

This growing number of releases has also revealed some worrying trends. Artur Smiarowski, creator of the turn-based roguelike RPG Soulash, shared that only 8% of all 2025 releases earned more than $100,000. Even more worrying, 40% of games didn’t earn back the $100 fee required to publish a title on Steam. The lowest 30% of games by revenue made an average of just $37 in total.

The situation doesn’t improve much when looking further up the list. So far in 2025, 8,388 games on Steam have made less than $1,000, and 47.4% sold fewer than 100 copies. Another 28% sold between 100 and 1,000 copies.

These numbers also include free-to-play games, which depend on bundles or in-game purchases to make money. Even with that in mind, the situation doesn’t look good. Developers should think twice before releasing a new game on Steam, as it could easily get lost among the many new titles coming out every day.

In other news, nearly 20% of games released on Steam in 2025 have disclosed using generative AI, which represents an 800% increase from the previous year.

RELATED

GOG Says Steam Censorship Due to Payment Systems Threatens Game Preservation

In July 2025, Valve updated Steam’s rules to block games that payment processors, banks, or card networks considered unacceptable.

Stay connected to MP1st and the latest news by following us on Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Google News.