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

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.

lmao

Wow. Like one new game a day when Steam on Linux came out and now it's over fifty games per day!

Last edited by Eike on 12 Dec 2025 at 11:20 am UTC

...and these are real stand-alone games only? (meaning without DLCs etc.?)

When people say stuff like "gaming is dead", usually referencing the crap quadruple A's, I point this out.

If even 1% of those games are "good enough", that is 190 good enough games. Even the most hardcore gamer isn't playing 190 games a year!

At 0.1%, you still have 19 good (and at this level probably 19 great) games.

Then consider how many classic/old games you missed. I suspect some 6-year-old that is starting to play games right now could reasonably never play anything made after 2025 and have a literal lifetime of amazing games to play.

If anything gaming is closer to saturated than dead.

Quoting: EikeWow. Like one new game a day when Steam on Linux came out and now it's over fifty games per day!

And roughly 1/10 of those having native Linux builds.

Quoting: eggroleWhen people say stuff like "gaming is dead", usually referencing the crap quadruple A's, I point this out.

If even 1% of those games are "good enough", that is 190 good enough games. Even the most hardcore gamer isn't playing 190 games a year!

At 0.1%, you still have 19 good (and at this level probably 19 great) games.

Then consider how many classic/old games you missed. I suspect some 6-year-old that is starting to play games right now could reasonably never play anything made after 2025 and have a literal lifetime of amazing games to play.

If anything gaming is closer to saturated than dead.

Quoting: eggroleWhen people say stuff like "gaming is dead", usually referencing the crap quadruple A's, I point this out.

If even 1% of those games are "good enough", that is 190 good enough games. Even the most hardcore gamer isn't playing 190 games a year!

At 0.1%, you still have 19 good (and at this level probably 19 great) games.

Then consider how many classic/old games you missed. I suspect some 6-year-old that is starting to play games right now could reasonably never play anything made after 2025 and have a literal lifetime of amazing games to play.

If anything gaming is closer to saturated than dead.

Even the large AAA games are anything, but dead.
Since they switched to more subscription and microtransaction bussiness models large releases par year aren't how you measure their engagement.
The games have switched from individual products to product brands.
It's their willingness to improve the old products is now what people are paying for, which still happens massively

Quoting: LoudTechieEven the large AAA games are anything, but dead.

I think when people say that, what they actually mean is they suck now. They are in some sense aesthetically or creatively or spiritually dead compared to the way they used to be in the good old days, is the idea. This is a much trickier question because it's hard to argue taste. I have no opinion on it since I don't play AAA games because they're never in the genres of games I play.

Get out your straws... it's time to slurp up the slop!

It's really sad. I've come across some really great games over the years that seemingly no one noticed or played. Not going to lie, I wish we could go back to something resembling the Steam Greenlight days, where games had to voted on to be able to be on the store. It would just need some tweaking to make sure it wasn't exploitable by shady developers. I feel it would really help cut down on the thousands of legitimately bad, low-effort-made games that flood the store daily. It frustrates me that so many good games get overlooked by most because it's not an established property. It's the same issue I have with Hollywood. The majority of stuff that doesn't have a known franchise attached to it gets ignored. Sure there are always exceptions, but those feel rare in comparison.

I don't review games or anything else generally. I'm not good at articulating my thoughts and feelings about something in a way that I believe would be helpful to anyone, and I don't want to simply say that I liked or didn't like a game, because I don't feel that is truly helpful.

Last edited by Tethys84 on 13 Dec 2025 at 1:28 am UTC

Judging by the numbers, any review, short or long is helpful for a small dev

I don't want to simply say that I liked or didn't like a game, because I don't feel that is truly helpful.

It *is*. In reality, comments like "great game" and "it sucked" don't get shown as top reviews, but the 👍 or 👎 you give counts, as well as the fact that people have actually voted.

If you see a game with 50000 reviews at 98% 👍, that's a well made game. If people didn't review because they don't have something comprehensive to write, that same game would get 30 reviews, and the 👍 rate would give you no statistically significant information.

So please, leave a simple review just to give the valuable positive/negative binary feedback.

Quoting: Tethys84It's really sad. I've come across some really great games over the years that seemingly no one noticed or played. Not going to lie, I wish we could go back to something resembling the Steam Greenlight days, where games had to voted on to be able to be on the store. It would just need some tweaking to make sure it wasn't exploitable by shady developers. I feel it would really help cut down on the thousands of legitimately bad, low-effort-made games that flood the store daily.

I get where you're coming from, and to some extent don't disagree, but I'm also not sure how much it'd really help. Let's say that all those games with <10 reviews are the legitimately bad, low-effort games. We cut those out. That still leaves 9,739 games released this year, or over 26 games released a day. We could go further and say only games with >50 reviews are likely to be actually good games…looking at the graph that's still something like 4,500 games, or over 12 games per day.

I think there are just so many people making games now, that even if we apply some arbitrary limit to cut out the really obviously bad ones there would still be so many releasing that no one could keep up with all of them. Would it result in some undiscovered gems getting noticed that haven't been otherwise? Probably, yes. But on the flip side how many games that have blown up and become viral hits in the years since Greenlight ended wouldn't have been voted on for approval with Greenlight?* It's a tricky question, but ultimately I think I'm in favor of erring on the side of more games and letting things like the review system float the good ones to the top (however imperfect a process that may be).

*Or, alternatively, how many games got through Greenlight and then ended up barely played because they weren't as good as the screenshots made them look?