Developers sometimes think of Early Access as an opportunity to warm up the audience and complete the game before the release of the 1.0 version. As discoverability expert Simon Carless points out, this mindset usually doesn’t work in practice.

The PC version of Returnal came out last week. Here are its launch numbers compared to other first-party titles from Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Hogwarts Legacy is having a massive launch both in terms of sales and player count. The latest game based on the Harry Potter franchise has already become one of the most played titles on Steam of all time.

Hogwarts Legacy is on its way to huge commercial success. The game is already showing impressive numbers on Steam, though it hasn’t been officially released yet.

Each year the number of indie games released on Steam increases. Despite that, there is no steady growth in the number of games that get promotion from Valve. Yearly only 470-590 indie games can count on featuring.

Extraction shooters like Escape from Tarkov are very hardcore and multiplayer-only titles. But what if you cut the online aspect and use the core gameplay formula to make a pixel art top-down game? This is exactly what solo developer Luca Carbonera did with his debut project ZERO Sievert, which eventually became a new hit on Steam.

Steam has reached a new milestone, recording over 10 million active in-game players. The platform also recently saw a new concurrent users peak.

Valve has revealed a list of the highest-grossing Steam games of 2022. Elden Ring, Dying Light 2, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II were among the leaders by revenue this year, while Raft and Vampire Survivors were one of the most succesful titles released ouf of Early Access.

SteamDB has released the list of the highest-rated Steam games of 2022, based on its own rating algorithm. The top 10 includes titles like Vampire Survivors, Neon White, and PowerWash Simulator.

People are used to stories of great success, but it is equally important to learn from others’ mistakes. Matt Sharp, solo developer at Momiji Studios, has reflected on the not-so-successful launch of his largely unique RPG Video Game Fables.

Developers have to fight old games for the attention of Steam players. So it is better not to underestimate the impact of existing hit titles, which continue to receive thousands of reviews per month, even years after their launch.

Polish developer and publisher SimFabric has seen almost all of its games removed from Steam. Valve also blocked the company’s account due to the massive wave of positive reviews that turned out to be fake.

It is unlikely that every indie developer expects their game to generate millions of dollars. However, the median lifetime earnings on Steam might not be enough to even stay in this industry and make another project.

Over the weekend, Steam set a new record for the number of concurrent players on the platform. Almost 32 million people were online at the same time on Valve’s store.

Probably the most popular way to estimate game sales on Steam is to add a certain multiplier to their review count. The problem is that the median ratio for big new releases has gone way up over time, so it is time to make some adjustments.

Soon after Valve updated its recommended regional pricing for Steam developers, some companies started increasing the prices of their titles in different countries. Here are some notable changes that have already taken place.

Valve has improved its pricing tool for Steam to help developers better manage selling their games in different currencies. The company also updated its recommendations, with significant price increases in certain regions.

Valve has committed to updating its regional pricing recommendations for Steam developers more frequently. The company says this problem is bigger than just foreign exchange rates and should reflect different economic circumstances.

Dome Keeper, an unusual combination of roguelike and mining genres, has grossed $1 million at launch. Here is how the Raw Fury-published indie game became profitable.