According to a new Bloomberg analysis, the number of games released on Valve’s digital storefront has skyrocketed since 2020, highlighting one of the biggest challenges facing the modern gaming industry: there are simply too many games being published.
Jason Schreier’s article sheds light on the situation with striking data that shows how much the industry has changed in just a few years. According to SteamDB, 9,656 games launched on Steam in 2020. By 2024, that number had surged by 93% to 18,626 — an average of 51 (!) new games released every single day.
In today’s attention-driven economy, game developers are no longer competing solely with one another for players’ money and time. They’re also battling streaming platforms, social media, and other digital distractions. Selling a game is already a difficult task, but with an ever-increasing flood of new releases — from major AAA blockbusters to small indie projects — the competition has become even fiercer.
This saturation isn’t necessarily a bad thing for gamers. In fact, it’s arguably the best time in history to be a player, with countless quality titles available at every price point across multiple platforms — even on devices never intended for gaming, thanks to advancements in cloud streaming technology.
Developers, however, face mounting challenges, particularly with the dominance of live-service titles like Fortnite, which represent the toughest competition for studios trying to release a single, fully-fledged game. While companies won’t explicitly blame layoffs or closures on “too many games,” it’s a new reality the industry must contend with more than ever before.
This may not be a “solvable” problem, but there’s no denying that the industry’s explosive growth in recent years has established a new normal — one that developers didn’t have to deal with five years ago.
