VG Insights: COVID-19 effect on Steam releases in 2020
It was tough for AA/AAA developers but good for indies.
2020 became the record year in Steam in terms of releases. More than 10,000 games appeared on the platform - it’s 23.7% more than in 2019. It was the first year in history when Steam releases reached this plank.
Number of big (AAA/AA) releases decreased by 13.7% compared to 2019 (2019 - 175; 2020 - 151). In contrary, indie releases showed growth by 24.6% (2019 - 7,926; 2020 - 9,873).
The pandemic affected badly AAA/AA releases in Q1-Q2 2020 and forced developers to postpone them. Indie developers haven’t noticed any troubles.
The average indie-game price in 2020 increased to $7.5. In 2019 it was $7.3; in 2018 - $6.4.