Jason Schreier, a well-known Bloomberg reporter and respected voice in the gaming community, has highlighted an increasingly obvious problem: the industry is producing far too many games.
The market is so saturated that even excellent games risk being overlooked.
The statistics are striking: Schreier reports that 18,626 games were released on Steam in 2024 — a 93% increase over 2020. That surge is driven by several forces: digital distribution eliminated shelf limits, development tools have become cheaper and more accessible, and launching a title no longer requires a large publisher.
Schreier warns the marketplace is becoming “almost impenetrable.” Teams numbering in the hundreds can spend years crafting a project that disappears upon release. Even well-reviewed titles struggle for attention: more than 120 games from 2025 scored above 80 on Metacritic, yet meaningful visibility and sales tend to go only to those nearing a 90.
This dynamic impacts every tier of the industry: indie studios find it hard to break through, while major publishers face huge financial risk. The post‑COVID fallout has intensified instability, prompting layoffs and studio closures. Schreier highlights the paradox — never before have so many high-quality games been released, and yet only a tiny fraction achieve success while the majority get lost in the noise.
Source: iXBT.games