Publisher of Studio Ghibli meets Stardew Valley life sim Spirittea says the failure of Steam's competitors is hitting indie games hard

Nov. 23, 2023

No More Robots lead delves into why the failure of PC launchers is hurting indies

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The publisher of a hit new indie game has explained why failed PC launchers are having a negative impact on new indie games.

Spirittealaunched earlier this week across PC and Xbox consoles via Xbox Game Pass, and Nintendo Switch. No More Robots was responsible for publishing the new cozy farming sim, and the head of the publisher, Mike Rose, has delved into why the failure of new PC launchers that try to rival Steam has actually ended up hurting indie games as a result.

Rose explains all in the tweet thread just below. Usually, indie games would have Steam be their most successful platform at launch, with other console platforms catching up later on. This wasn’t the case for Spirittea, though, because 80% of its revenue came from both Xbox consoles and Nintendo Switch, meaning merely 20% of its revenue came from Steam.

Rose thinks this is because “way more” AAA publishers have started putting their games on Steam, having failed to make Steam competitors on PC succeed. TakeActivision, for example, which recently switched to putting its Call of Duty games back on Steam over the past few years, taking them away from launching exclusively on Battle.net.Epic Gameshas recently discussed how its own launcher is still failing to turn a profit, and as those launchers roll back some of their ambitions those games are returning to Steam.

As Rose explains, that means “more eyeballs on the bigger releases, and less for the smaller releases,” as Steam draws in more AAA releases over the year. That means indie releases are finding it harder than ever to stand out from the crowd and make a bigger impact onValve’s platform. The failure of Steam rivals like Battle.net andUbisoft’s PC launcher have just thrust more AAA games onto Steam, and that’s really hurt indie games.

Spirittea might not have necessarily stood out from the crowd on Steam, but it’s apparently gaining a lot of traction on the Switch eShop, because it’s reached the ‘Best Sellers’ chart on the storefront. Switch sales should stay solid from here on out, Rose reckons, so it’s good news for the new indie game on that front.

You can read up on our guide to all theupcoming indie gamesthat you should be keeping an eye on for other great small-time games.

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