this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2026
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Behold, "the whole story of Steam's economy in one picture": the top 1% of games earn 84.5% of estimated revenue, and most games barely make anything (www.gamesradar.com)
submitted 2 days ago by brachiosaurus@mander.xyz to c/games@lemmy.world
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[–] pory@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

Slay the Spire and lower quality but still "real" indie games. That entire gamut. The best games ever made and "uhh it's balatro but with throwing darts". That's all more numerous than AAA stuff and also dwarfed in volume by porn jigsaw puzzles, asset flips, and other actual zero effort slop "games". AAA and "real indie games" are a tiny minority of the games on steam.

Twelve thousand "games" have been released on Steam this year as of July. That would mean the meaningless statistic in the article implies that 240 games from this year drive 85% of this year's spending. 240 games in 2026 "worth spending money on" is not a dire portrait of AAA slurping up the market space. That "1% of games" is presented to look like "the top 1% fat cat games" when 1% absolutely includes not just the AAA and the top shelf indie (like Slay the Spire) but also the flashes in the pan and the trend chasers and the friendslop and the Balatro clones and the forever GAAS.

Those "not truly slop but" uninspired indie games like stardew clone #780 comfortably fit into the "top" 240 Steam games this year. Darkest Dungeon 2 is absolutely a "top percent" game when the overall pool includes so much actual nothing in it.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours ago

The best games ever made and “uhh it’s balatro but with throwing darts”.

Aside from being addictive, Balatro's a popular game because it plays well on any medium. Deck-builder rogue-likes are phone friendly, PC friendly, and not entirely unapproachable on console.

AAA and “real indie games” are a tiny minority of the games on steam.

That's all true. But even if we cut out the click-bait and the slop, lots of games fail on their own merits.

240 games in 2026 “worth spending money on” is not a dire portrait of AAA slurping up the market space.

Yeah, I absolutely agree. Adding in the denominator counts for a lot. I might caveat that with the question "Are those 240 games any good?" Because it's very possible that slop games are what pull in all the revenue, while quality titles flounder. But, again, that would require some real actual journalism instead of click-bait rage-bait headlines.

Incidentally, has anyone asked about the state of game journalism recently? What are those stats looking like?