A rare Steam bug caused the full release of Planet Centauri to go almost entirely unnoticed. Despite more than 100,000 copies sold and over 130,000 wishlists during its 10 years in Early Access, no one received notifications about the game’s 1.0 launch. Valve eventually admitted the error, but the indie studio Permadeath still suffered a severe financial setback.

Nine months after the release of version 1.0, the developers learned that the bug wasn’t in their device after all.

Planet Centauri, a 2D sandbox game combining survival, creature collection, and automation elements, didn’t have the start it could have hoped for with the 1.0 release. Despite selling over 100,000 copies and being added to the wishlists of over 130,000 users during its Early Access period of more than 10 years, indie developer Permadeath watched the day of Planet Centauri’s full release arrive with little fanfare.

Laurent Lechat, the Permadeath developer, wrote on Reddit that only 581 copies were sold in five days. The game didn’t even appear on page two; it was invisible. Thus, it was a complete failure. Until now, they didn’t understand why. Nine months later, Permadeath finally received an explanation from Valve: when Planet Centauri was released, Steam did not notify those who had added it to their wishlist. Valve wrote in an email to Permadeath that an error occurred during the release of Planet Centauri 1.0, affecting fewer than 100 games since 2015. As a result, no email notification was sent about the game’s release to those who had wishlisted it.

Although it’s unlikely that all 130,000 wishlist entries for Planet Centauri would have resulted in sales, Steam failed to send out notifications on launch day. This meant that Planet Centauri didn’t receive a significant boost when it mattered most to Valve’s competitive discovery algorithm. Although Steam’s curation algorithms are black boxes, the explosive growth in first-day sales could have placed Planet Centauri (whose 1.0 trailer was viewed by nearly half a million people on YouTube) on Steam’s New and Popular list. Had release notifications been sent to interested users, the game could have entered the radar of YouTube users and streamers, who could have contributed to further waves of the attention economy. While we can only guess how much better Planet Centauri would have sold, it’s almost certain that it would have sold better.

In an email, Valve offered to feature Planet Centauri in Steam’s daily deals to make up for the lost visibility. According to Lechat, the team now has a better understanding of the situation. It’s unfair, but they can’t change things. They started a second project because improving their game is financially impossible, and moving forward is their only option.

Lechat said Permadeath’s efforts are now focused on a roguelike game built with the same engine as Planet Centauri because their financial situation makes supporting the failed launch impossible. Lechat shared his story to express his anger and draw attention to the problems that a platform controlling 99% of the PC gaming market can cause when things don’t work as they should.

Source: PCGamer, Polygon