The niche at a glance

Indie on Steam: 79,158 released games, 17,008 in the last 12 months, 33,635 announced and still unreleased. Of the 29,372 released between three years and 90 days ago, the median has 8 lifetime reviews. 53% of them never reached 10 reviews. Free to play: 11%. Indie is a Steam store tag, applied by the developer and refined by players; a game carries several tags at once, so niche counts overlap and do not add up to the size of the Steam catalogue. Data as of .

What releases end up with

lifetime reviews · released 3 years ago to 90 days ago · failures included29,372 releases
p100
p252
median8
p7533
p90154
53% of them never reached 10 reviewsMedian price $4.99 · 11% free-to-play

Releases per year

outcomes count only games released more than 90 days ago, anything newer has not had time to gather reviews
2019
5,511median 19 · 36% under 10 reviews
2020
5,917median 20 · 35% under 10 reviews
2021
5,460median 17 · 38% under 10 reviews
2022
5,521median 17 · 37% under 10 reviews
2023
6,024median 14 · 42% under 10 reviews
2024
8,666median 11 · 46% under 10 reviews
2025
10,729median 8 · 52% under 10 reviews
2026
14,675median 5 · 60% under 10 reviews · 5,840 too fresh