{
  "id": 8841006,
  "title": "Steam Week in Review: This indie publisher released 29 terrible-looking Steam games in a single day—will they make any money?",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/21/steam-week-in-review-this-indie-publisher-released-29-terrible",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-21T04:24:25.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "PC Gamer",
    "slug": "pc-gamer",
    "url": "https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/steam-week-in-review-this-indie-publisher-released-29-terrible-looking-steam-games-in-a-single-day-will-they-make-any-money/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In a recent Steam week, indie publisher Hard Shark Games released 29 games on the platform in a single day. All of the games were early access releases, covering a wide range of genres including racing, retail sim, survival horror, sport, flight sim, and 2D platformer. The publisher noted that they launch their games in Early Access to involve the community from the start. The company also took a similar approach to early access updates, with identical update notes for several games released on the same day. Despite the unappealing appearance of the games, Hard Shark Games may have made a significant profit from the releases. Using a popular method to estimate sales based on Steam review counts, the publisher could have made as much as $2,900 from the 29 games since their release. While it is unlikely that each game cost nothing to make, the low development costs combined with the potential high sales could result in a profitable venture for Hard Shark Games.",
  "summary": "All the interesting Steam facts for the week ending September 20.",
  "key_points": [
    "Hard Shark Games released 29 games on Steam in one day.",
    "Games covered various genres including racing and survival horror.",
    "Publisher could have made up to $2,900 from the releases."
  ],
  "editors_take": "Releasing many low-cost, visually unappealing games and relying on community feedback may prove a viable profit strategy for Hard Shark Games, despite unconventional game development and marketing methods.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}