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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

2023 was seemingly a record-breaking year for new releases on Steam with over 14,000 titles launching on the storefront over the last 12 months.

That's according to the latest estimates from SteamDB, which indicate that 14,531 games were released on the digital marketplace in 2023. It's a significant upswing on the previous record set during 2022, when an estimated 12,562 titles landed on Steam.

October 2023 was also the most saturated month for new releases on record, with 1,324 titles hitting the storefront during that window.

SteamDB's data suggests the number of annual Steam releases has been on a near-continuous upward trajectory since the platform opened its doors to third-party developers in 2005, with the only significant blip occurring in 2019 when the number of annual releases fell to 8,134 in 2019 from 8,900 in 2018.

Latest estimates show over 14,000 new titles launched on Steam in 2023

All signs suggest it was a record-breaking year for new releases on Steam.

www.gamedeveloper.com

 

[jshackles]

Mostly this

 

[Lupin3]

There are probably games on Steam no one will ever find.

 

[Mephisto40]

13,000 of them were cookie clicker clones

 

[Magic Carpet]

OK, Thick Thighs Saves Lives, You can stop begging for physical releases now, Right?

 

[ReBurn]

And I still can't find anything to play

 

[R6Rider]

 

[violence]

Like Stalin says, “Quantity is quality.”

 

[Holammer]

13,000 of them were cookie clicker clones

#1 cloned genre right now is Survivor games and recently we're getting a lot of Suika clones.

I have checked What's on Steam daily for yonks now and my general observation is that the deluge of crap is starting to look better. Mostly because of cheap or free assets packs and easy to use engines and tools. You can whip up a simple professional looking zombie shooter game in Unreal Engine without drawing, recording or modelling anything.
With AI generation it's going to become even easier. It won't be long until an AI models, textures, rigs & animates assets at the press of a button.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

OK, Thick Thighs Saves Lives, You can stop begging for physical releases now, Right?

LOL. Never!

But since it's Steam we're talking about I'll beg for DRM free games.

 

[DryvBy]

#1 cloned genre right now is Survivor games and recently we're getting a lot of Suika clones.

I have checked What's on Steam daily for yonks now and my general observation is that the deluge of crap is starting to look better. Mostly because of cheap or free assets packs and easy to use engines and tools. You can whip up a simple professional looking zombie shooter game in Unreal Engine without drawing, recording or modelling anything.
With AI generation it's going to become even easier. It won't be long until an AI models, textures, rigs & animates assets at the press of a button.

Steam has been this for a long time:

I can't even apply the filters I need so I just stop buying games on Steam unless I get a direct link.

 

[StereoVsn]

While most of it is crap, there are more actually decent games released each year that will never get an audience. There are so many games released now that even being merely a good game for a genre isn’t nearly enough.

You have Global teams publishing through Steam. Cost of access is low, and game dev on PC has never been easier or more streamlined with new tools. And cheaper.

So it’s not just the dupe games or asset flips, but rather more actual proper titles with more and more genuinely good ones that will never see the light of day.

It’s unfortunate but it’s an artifact of free mobile games, GaaS, many other items pressing for time as well as just sheer number and variety of quality software across PC and consoles.

So it’s simultaneously the easiest time to be an indie dev on Steam and the hardest.

 

[Laptop1991]

Far too many, no one will ever discover them all. I think Steam went a bit downhill when it started doing this and opening it's doors to all in the latter half of the last decade, i switch off half the time going through my queue