Steam Week in Overview: This indie writer launched 29 terrible-looking Steam video games in a single day—will they make any cash?

It’s been a busy week for prodigious sport writer Hard Shark Games: on September 15 it launched an astonishing 29 video games on Steam throughout an enormous number of genres.

Not solely did Hard Shark Games publish that many video games, however the firm can also be marked as developer for each certainly one of them. All of which, thoughts you, are early entry affairs. “We’re launching in Early Access to involve the community from the very start,” reads the primary sentence of each single one of many early entry blurbs for Hard Shark Games launched in September 2026, which embrace genres as various as racing, retail sim, survival horror, sport, flight sim and 2D platformer.

The similar is true for among the 29 video games Hard Shark Games launched on March 4 final yr: “We’re launching in Early Access to involve the community from the very start,” reads the primary line within the blurb for Speedboat Simulator. “We’re launching in Early Access to contain the group from the very begin,” reads the primary line within the blurb for Toy Battlegrounds: Shoot ‘Em Up Survival. You get the thought.

The “company” has additionally taken the same strategy to early entry updates: the replace notes for Starship Fighters, Sky Combat and Streets of Rageness (!) are an identical: “Optimized several core systems, resulting in smoother gameplay and up to 10% better overall performance, especially during longer sessions,” reads the primary sentence of all three, every of which had been revealed on March 5 inside 5 minutes of one another.

Will Hard Shark Games revenue from any of the 29 Steam video games it launched final week? You could also be stunned. It prices $100 to open a Steam retailer web page, which is recoupable if a sport makes greater than $1,000 adjusted gross income. So it could have value Hard Shark Games $2,900 to publish its 29 very unpromising trying video games on Steam, all of which carry an AI disclosure for capsule artwork however no different side of growth.

Using the favored Boxleiter Method (through impress.games), which makes use of a sport’s public Steam overview rely to estimate gross sales, Supermarket Life Simulator—to make use of only one instance—might have made as a lot as $885 as a excessive estimate, or $295 on the decrease finish. Then there’s Pool: it might have made as a lot as $2,780 or as little as $926. Meanwhile, for F1 Simulator we’re $1,686 as a excessive estimate and $562 as a low.

So including up the low estimates, these three video games alone—of 29—have made $1,783 within the 5 days since launch. That’s effectively over half of Hard Shark Games’ outlay for the shop listings in lower than every week in the marketplace, although if the excessive estimates are extra correct, the $2,900 outlay has been lengthy handed and Hard Shark Games’ funding is already paying off handsomely.

Of course, that assumes these video games value nothing to make, and that is unlikely, despite the fact that all of them look fairly low effort. For instance, Supermarket Life Simulator clearly makes use of the $50 Checkout Frenzy – Convenience Store Simulator Unity template, which very many retail sims on Steam do. There’s nothing mistaken with utilizing a template, however evaluating the pictures of Supermarket Life Simulator with the Unity template screenshots reveals some an identical grocery imagery. Steam consumer opinions declare Supermarket Life Simulator is a straight asset flip of the template, and that is an accusation levelled at Hard Shark Games quite often.

(Also: how on earth did Kratos find yourself in a screenshot for the creative-titled Axe Slasher?)

Hard Shark Games has a complete of 217 listings on Steam. Of all of these—which soak up 121 video games and 96 demos—the very best peak concurrent participant determine is a whopping 13. To add insult to damage, that file excessive is for a demo, particularly Supermarket Simulator Pro Demo, which is not obtainable. So not many individuals play these video games within the scheme of issues, however assuming Hard Shark Games is only one individual turning out extraordinarily low cost template-based software program at a speedy tempo, the enterprise is certainly able to making a tidy sum of cash.

I’ve reached out to Hard Shark Games to see if somebody there’ll shed additional gentle on their technique. It’s hardly the least prolific writer on Steam although: BFG Entertainment has launched a whopping 555 video games, whereas PlayWay—the religious dwelling of rapidly rotated retail sims—has 340.

Top Steam video games by income (September 8 – 15)

Wardogs hitting primary in its launch week was inevitable: it is a uncommon instance of an early entry multiplayer launch the place the dialog is not centered on what’s mistaken with the sport. Players—including our Morgan—seem to be loving it.

Last week The Blood of Dawnwalker hit number one in its launch week; now it’s down to 10, which is a good result for a single player RPG. It did seem to outperform Onimusha, on PC at least: last week the latter ranked sixth, while this week it’s at 13th. It’s likely selling much better on PlayStation.

Halloween: The Game isn’t available in Australia—it was refused classification—but appears in the chart nevertheless.

Last week’s Steam deep cuts