Steam Direct Sees Spike in New Releases

Steam has seen a spike in new game releases after the implementation of Steam Direct, Valve's newly launched publishing platform. According to data gathered by Ico Partners, a rising trend in release numbers can be seen before and after Steam Direct's debut.

Here are the number of releases of the previous weeks (from mid-April 2017).

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Just last year, games that were released in 2016 ed for 40% of Steam's total game catalogue. One of the initial objectives of the new publishing system was to "decrease the noise in the submission pipeline". However, Valve currently predicts there will be more submissions being pushed through Steam Direct than its now defunct predecessor Greenlight.

With this transition to Steam Direct, we'll be keeping an eye on new submissions and making adjustments as necessary. We aren't quite sure whether there will be a lot more new submissions, just a bit more, or even fewer. It's most likely that there will be an initial surge of new submissions and then a new rate somewhat higher than what was coming through Greenlight.

The current spike in new releases can be most likely be attributed to the 3,400 games that Valve approved before the final closure of Steam Greenlight. When the initial surge of backlog releases has slowed down, Steam Direct's numbers will likely still be higher than Greenlight's due to the continuous growth and output of the game industry as a whole.

While many were pessimistic about Steam Direct and its ability to foster a healthy publishing environment for quality games, the new system is still a work in progress and going through some growing pains. Only time can tell if the new changes that Valve has implemented will be effective in streamlining the publishing process and improving overall experience. Until then, next month's forecast will include another swarm of new releases.