Over 19,000 games have released on Steam in 2025, with nearly half seeing fewer than 10 reviews

Showing just how insane it is to be a game developer right now, we've hit an all-time high for game releases on Steam in 2025 and not many get seen.

Taken from SteamDB, we can see from their data that there's been 19,008 games for 2025. That is a lot of games to be launching in a single year, which is up from 18,558 games in 2024 and 14,111 in 2023. This is a reminder that developers are not just competing with new releases when launching a game, but everything on Steam with many older titles remaining incredibly popular.

Showing just how difficult it can be to actually get a game in front of an audience, of the 19,008 from this year, a whopping 9,269 games have 10 or fewer reviews. There is a slight silver lining here though, as it appears the number of games receiving at least 100 reviews have been growing over the years since 2020. It's a bit lower than 2024 right now, but that will likely even-out before the end of 2025.

It doesn't take a whole lot to launch a game on Steam. A little bit of know-how along with paying the Steam Direct fee which is about $100 / £73.99. After that, if you're approved, it's mostly down to developers and publishers to actually find a way to market their games and cut through the noise of hundreds releasing constantly.

As someone who follows the constant stream of releases, there really is a lot of pure junk getting released onto Steam. And, with the increase use of generative AI, that release counter is only going to continue increasing. I expect 2026 will be another explosive year on Steam. I even just recently had a press release enter the GamingOnLinux mailbox that proudly mentioned the game was "100% AI", which went quickly into the bin.

Leaving a review for a game you enjoyed is still one of the best boosts for a game developer. So something to keep in mind.