{"id":252491,"date":"2023-10-04T07:18:23","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T11:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/es\/?p=308826"},"modified":"2025-07-01T18:04:28","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T01:04:28","slug":"publishing-a-videogame-on-steam-is-synonymous-with-failure-the-great-majority-barely-makes-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/publishing-a-videogame-on-steam-is-synonymous-with-failure-the-great-majority-barely-makes-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Publishing a video game on Steam is synonymous with failure: the vast majority barely makes any money"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Success in the gaming industry can be measured in many different ways. For some developers, it might be enough for players to engage with their title; for others, it could be about creating a meaningful experience. Yet, for the majority, it’s a combination of these factors and significant sales<\/strong> because, at the end of the day, we all have bills to pay, whether we like it or not. However, this is more challenging than ever, and publishing a video game on Steam these days is synonymous with failure<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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It’s not something we’re saying, but rather the statistics themselves. Currently, more than 50% of the games<\/strong> published on Steam generate less than $1,000 in revenue<\/strong>. Yes, you read that right: over half of the published titles hardly make any money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The statistic gets even worse, as 76.5%<\/strong> of the games published on Steam earn less than $5,000 in revenue<\/strong>. This figure is dismal even for small projects, as this amount barely covers anything. Therefore, three out of every four games<\/strong> make very little money for the time invested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In this context, it’s worth noting that many of these projects that earn little or no money are developed by amateur developers<\/strong>. In this case, the focus is not so much on economic success but rather on personal satisfaction. However, it’s challenging to quantify the percentage that each group represents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, the total number of video games that have managed to surpass $10,000 in revenue has been increasing each year, although the figures are still relatively low. For instance, in 2022, only 2,067 video games managed to earn more than $10,000<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an interesting fact, over the last three years, a total of 41,000 video games have been published on Steam<\/strong>. This accounts for 58% of the platform’s total<\/strong> at the moment. To put it another way: from 2020 until now, more games have been published than in the entire previous history of Steam (17 years, to be exact). The number is staggering.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\r\n \"Steam\"\r\n <\/div>\r\n
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More than 41,000 video games have been published on Steam during the last three years. This represents 58% of the platform’s total.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9091,"featured_media":252493,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1018,1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-252491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9091"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252491"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317494,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252491\/revisions\/317494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252491"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=252491"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=252491"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=252491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}