The takeaway: New technology and democratized development tools have supercharged the way games are created and sold. The result? An explosion of creativity like never before. But there's a catch: a marketplace so overcrowded that even the best games struggle to be seen. For players, this is a golden era. For developers and publishers, it's an escalating arms race where only a few titles manage to break through.
The video game industry is in the middle of a turbulent transition. Massive layoffs and corporate restructuring have dominated headlines, but underneath those issues is a more fundamental shift: there are simply too many games, as it was recently highlighted by Jason Schreier.
According to data from SteamDB, 18,626 titles launched on Steam in 2024 alone – a staggering 93% increase from the 9,656 released in 2020. This surge is fueled by global growth in gaming, accessible dev tools like Unity and Unreal, and the near-total shift to digital distribution, which eliminated the old gatekeepers of retail shelf space.
According to data from SteamDB, 18,626 titles launched on Steam in 2024 alone – a staggering 93% increase from the 9,656 released in 2020.
The effects of this flood were on full display in September 2025. After seven years in development, Team Cherry's Hollow Knight: Silksong finally launched to critical acclaim, instantly hailed as one of the year's best games. Just weeks later, Supergiant Games dropped the full version of Hades II, another indie sequel with equally glowing reviews.
And those weren't isolated hits. In between came a remake of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, a new entry in the Borderlands franchise, a cooperative Lego puzzle game, and a new installment in the long-running Silent Hill series – all within the same month.
Unlike the infamous 1983 video game crash, this modern glut isn't driven by bad games. In fact, many are excellent. Of the thousands of titles released last year, 1,431 received at least 500 user reviews on Steam – a sign they were played by thousands of people. Nearly 260 earned positive ratings from over 90% of players, and 800 scored above 80%.
But in today's fragmented attention economy, quality alone isn't enough. Live-service giants like Counter-Strike, Dota 2, and PUBG: Battlegrounds dominate Steam's most-played charts year after year. Meanwhile, off-platform heavyweights such as League of Legends and Roblox command millions of daily users.
That leaves newcomers competing not only with each other but also with games designed to keep players hooked indefinitely. Even the most celebrated new releases often sink without a trace.
In 2025, more than 120 games scored above 80 on Metacritic, but only a handful crossed the 90 threshold – the level where buzz translates into widespread sales.
Dreamhaven's Wildgate and Sunderfolk are prime examples: both earned glowing reviews yet struggled to gain traction. Their fate underscores a harsh truth – critical praise doesn't pay the bills if a game gets buried in an endless release calendar.
For studios investing hundreds of millions into blockbuster productions, the stakes are higher than ever. Players have more choice than at any point in history, but for developers, the challenge isn't just making a great game. It's making one that people notice.