Nearly 13,000 Games Have Launched on Steam in 2025, But Most Barely Sold up to $100
- Sagar Mankar
- 1 hour ago
- 2 min read
Steam has seen an avalanche of new releases in 2025, with nearly 13,000 games launched since January 1, according to data estimates from analytics platform Gamalytic. While that number highlights the sheer scale of PC gaming’s open ecosystem, it also underscores a harsher reality: the majority of these titles have gone largely unnoticed.
The milestone was flagged on social media by Artur Smiarowski, developer of Soulash and Soulash 2, who shared Gamalytic’s findings. As of now, the platform estimates 12,732 games have been released this year. That’s a staggering figure, but it doesn’t mean all of them are finding success. In fact, most aren’t even breaking even.
According to Smiarowski, only 8% of games released this year grossed more than $100,000. Meanwhile, around 40% didn’t even make back the $100 Steam Direct submission fee. For context, that fee is refunded once a game earns $1,000 in adjusted revenue, but many titles never reach that threshold.
The bottom end of the market looks even bleaker. A chart shared by Smiarowski showed that the lowest 30% of games averaged just $37 in gross revenue. Publicly available data backs this up: 65.9% of 2025 releases earned less than $1,000, and nearly half sold fewer than 100 copies. Another 28% managed between 100 and 1,000 sales, but that still leaves them far from sustainable.
Of course, not every game on Steam is designed to be a commercial hit. Many hobbyist developers upload projects for fun, learning, or community sharing, often with no expectation of profit. Free-to-play titles without monetization naturally skew the numbers as well. Still, the sheer volume of low-selling games highlights how crowded the platform has become.
