Gaming marketing expert Chris Zukowski examined how many new titles released in the first half of 2024 on Steam became "hits." That is, they received at least a thousand reviews* on the platform. There were not many.
- A total of 8362 games were released on Steam between January 1 and July 12 (i.e., by the end of the summer sale).
- Of these, only 232 games managed to garner a thousand reviews. 72 games became "hits" in the first quarter of 2024, and 160 more games joined the list in the second quarter of 2024.
- 119 out of the 160 "hits" of the second quarter are so-called "true indie" games, while the rest are AAA games and games based on major IPs.
- None of the new releases in the first half of 2024 that received fewer than 400 reviews in their debut month later reached a thousand reviews.
- Zukowski predicts that by the end of the year, roughly 500 releases from 2024 will have more than a thousand reviews on Steam. This is in line with the figures of the past few years, despite the rapid growth in the number of games being released on the platform.
*According to Zukowski, a thousand reviews is an almost arbitrary metric. He chose this number because a) most games on Steam do not surpass this threshold, and b) it usually corresponds to a gross revenue of $300,000. When a game's revenue reaches this level, Valve starts offering developers various promotional options to increase the game's visibility, such as pop-up windows and daily deals.