Sometimes a cascade of misfortune moves beyond frustration and into the realm of the absurd. That seems to be the story of Planet Centauri, the multiplayer exploration title that just can’t seem to catch a break.
Planet Centauri — a cozy blend of Terraria and Pokémon — left early access in December 2024 after roughly a decade in development. The French duo behind the project entered launch with high hopes: the game had amassed about 138,000 wishlists on Steam, a number that normally signals a sizable pool of potential buyers who would be notified when the game reached a new milestone. In practice, wishlist counts are only one piece of the puzzle: conversion to sales varies widely, notification settings differ by user, and visibility on the storefront depends on many moving parts. Still, the developers were stunned when the game’s release fell flat despite favorable player impressions and hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube.
Initially, the studio chalked it up to bad timing and the brutal competition for attention in the games market — worthy projects often fail to break through. But about a year later they received an email from Valve that altered their understanding of what had gone wrong: a Steam notification system error had prevented many wishlist holders from receiving alerts. Without those pings, the title couldn’t climb into high-visibility sections such as Popular New Releases. Valve said the bug was rare but real, and as a gesture offered the team another opportunity: a Steam Daily Deal, which would trigger notifications to wishlisters and place the game in prominent sale placements across the store.
Image: PermadeathThere were no guarantees: a Daily Deal can boost visibility, but it also depends on timing and what else is dominating headlines. By then, tastes had shifted — games like extraction shooters and battle royales were the prevailing trends — and the developers had already trimmed back ongoing work when initial traction failed to materialize, which left the release with mixed reviews. Even when a game is on sale or featured, many users ignore storefront windows and pop-ups unless they’re actively searching for something, so discoverability remains a fickle thing.
The team accepted Valve’s offer and selected one of the available dates: November 12. Unfortunately, that choice collided with a much larger moment. On the same day Valve unveiled several new hardware initiatives — a Steam-branded machine, an updated controller, and a VR headset — and redesigned the storefront to spotlight those announcements. With the entire above-the-fold space devoted to hardware news, a small indie Daily Deal was easy to miss. The announcement drowned out the sale, and the additional editorial coverage around Valve’s products absorbed the attention that might otherwise have flowed to the game.
In short, an unexpected confluence of events again undermined Planet Centauri’s opportunity for wider exposure. Laurent Lechat, one of the developers, described the timing as unfortunate and conceded Valve had no reason to target an indie studio when planning a major reveal.
Image: PermadeathLechat acknowledged the coincidence and stressed Valve’s announcement was not targeted at them — just bad timing. Still, the Daily Deal did produce tangible results: the game moved a little over 5,000 copies that day. It was fewer than the developers had hoped for and less than the spike generated when the wishlist glitch first became public, but for a small studio operating on a tight budget those sales were meaningful.
According to Lechat, the revenue from that surge is enough to keep the studio afloat for roughly a year and to fund completion of their next project, a 2D roguelike currently in development. That follow-up will skip early access in favor of releasing a demo as soon as it’s practical — a pivot toward prioritizing polish over prolonged early access testing.
The team hasn’t closed the door on further work for Planet Centauri. If their next release performs well, they hope to revisit and update the exploration game more consistently. For now they’re taking the setbacks in stride and focusing on what they can control: shipping a stronger second title and learning from a string of unlucky circumstances.
“I must admit,” Lechat said, “over the years I’ve begun to feel like Planet Centauri is cursed.”
Source: Polygon
