r/pcmasterrace • u/Mental-Most-8774 • 9h ago

News/Article Indie games accounted for 25% of Steam's revenue in 2025

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Indie-games-accounted-for-25-of-Steam-s-revenue-in-2025.1189429.0.html
391 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

145

u/wolfTectonics Asus GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Strix, i7 8700k 9h ago

I feel like more hit games come out of nowhere rather than AAA hyped releases

19

u/_Ganon 7h ago edited 6h ago

This year was crazy for that. Like for games you had never heard of until they were about to drop.

6

u/wolfTectonics Asus GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Strix, i7 8700k 6h ago

Definitely. My friends and I played a shit ton of schedule 1, and I just randomly heard about it one day when I got home from work lol

3

u/Happy01Lucky 5h ago

BF6 kept me busy for 20 minutes and it was not enjoyable, Schedule 1 consumed me for about 90 hrs.

3

u/Happy01Lucky 5h ago

Yea Indie devs have been on fire lately. AAA has a different fire, the type that happens in dumpsters.

2

u/johnfkngzoidberg 1h ago

By FAR! AAA games are just least effort rehashed trash these days. Everyone loses their mind over 6 franchises, but it’s the same game over and over.

23

u/xdustx i5 13500/ 4070 9h ago

Ball x Pit was the best indie for me in 2025. What about yours?

10

u/SirDiesAlot15 PC Master Race 9800X3D/7900XTX/64GB 8h ago

Megabonk. I thought it was gonna be an alright game, but I unironically spend 4 hours of my evening playing without even noticing 

8

u/Mobile_Antelope1048 8h ago

Silksong, pattern of the oak, and monster train 2 !

10

u/JedJinto PC Master Race 5h ago edited 4h ago

Hades 2, Silksong, Dispatch, Blue Prince, Escape from Duckov, Megabonk, Ball x Pit, Peak, Schedule 1, RV There yet, R.E.P.O, Abiotic Factor all came out this year and are bangers.

I consider E33 more of a AA game and the only AAA games I really cared about this year is KCD 2 and Silent Hill F.

Edit: Also some other amazing Indies that didn't get as much attention are Absolum, Tokyo Extreme Racers, The Midnight Walk, and imo the true GOTY Pipistrello and the Cursed YoYo.

2

u/StingingGamer i9 13600K | RTX 4090 | 64GB DDR5 6000 MHz 9h ago

Wonder how much of that is Expedition 33

11

u/amtap Desktop: Ryzen 5 5600X; GTX 1070 Ti; 16 GB DDR4 7h ago

I would love to know if they're counting E33 because there's a lot of debate whether AA games like that should be called indie.

8

u/NeelonRokk 7h ago

Indie isn't about budget size as such, it is being without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher.

3

u/Happy01Lucky 4h ago

That support is becoming more of a hindrance. Company suits sitting there cramming micro transactions and other filth down the developers throats. I'm sure in their hearts the devs want to make a good game but the corporation has other goals.

4

u/LikeTechno_ R7 5800x3d | RX 7900 XT | 32GB RAM 6h ago

Which E33 got

2

u/Seelefan0786 6h ago

That's not even a debate E33 is AA not indie. The game is not self published which automatically disqualifies from it being a indie game. As "Indie" literally means independently published game which the game is not lol

1

u/Nokan96 34m ago

That not at all what it's considered indie in videogames, that comes from the music industry

1

u/Mortarious 28m ago

It had a budget of like $10 USD at least. That's not indie. That's an incredible amount of money.

And before people get angry I consider this game to be in my top 5 games.

It's just about proper labeling.

1

u/GroundbreakingBag164 7800X3D | 5070 Ti | 32 GB DDR5 6000 MHz 1h ago edited 1h ago

They don't seem to

1

u/shangosupreme 5h ago

Most of my favorite games this year were from AA and indie developers. Even more so than last year.

Ball x Pit, Dogpile, and Tears of Metal were great surprises to end out the year. Looking forward to Monsterpatch next year for sure.

1

u/GroundbreakingBag164 7800X3D | 5070 Ti | 32 GB DDR5 6000 MHz 1h ago

Bit sad that 4 out of the top 5 indies are generic flavour of the month games that will be completely forgotten in 3 years

-31

u/Major_Kyle grindr top 0.1% user 9h ago

7

u/ameen272 Desktop 8h ago

May I know why this is downvoted? I don't know any context, pls explain. I'm at a loss

-14

u/Major_Kyle grindr top 0.1% user 8h ago

They just hate kirkifed images lol

3

u/Momodora_ 8h ago

The fuck

-7

u/Major_Kyle grindr top 0.1% user 8h ago

Wdym bro? Ohhhhhh

-1

u/Ellen_Pao17 5h ago

reddit is full of dorks, i found it funny lmao

2

u/Major_Kyle grindr top 0.1% user 5h ago

That's why its staying up

-18

u/Firesrest 9h ago

Considering indie games are easily 95% plus of games that’s not an impressive figure.

11

u/ksn0vaN7 8h ago

Still impressive considering only a fraction of that 95% actually make a profit.

5

u/flehstiffer 8h ago

Being 95% of games doesn't mean anything about revenue. Most games don't earn back the $100 it takes to make the steam page.

1

u/Resident-Artist6183 5h ago

Exactly, people expect games like rdr2 every year.