Tim Bender, CEO of Hooded Horse, a publisher specializing in strategy, simulation, and RPG titles, stated that a recent underlying mechanism change on Steam has brought significant traffic boosts to many game developers.
In a lengthy LinkedIn post, Bender confirmed reports by indie game observer Simon Carless: over the past few weeks and even months, the visibility of indie games on Steam—meaning the likelihood of players discovering games or having them appear in recommendation feeds—has significantly increased.
This change appears linked to Steam's core recommendation section, "Discounts & Events." Prominently placed on the homepage, this section has clearly undergone algorithmic optimization to better suit personalized player needs: reducing the prominence of top-selling titles and instead pushing more curated content based on players' playtime, wishlists, and purchase history.
Bender said, "Suddenly, I'm seeing many high-quality indie titles with review counts ranging from under a hundred to several thousand, all perfectly matching my preferred genres. Sometimes when refreshing the page, it even recommends Gold Box series Dungeons & Dragons games from the late 80s and early 90s—these titles were re-released on Steam four years ago and still have fewer than 300 reviews, hitting my preferences spot-on."
Bender provided data to support this claim. Over the past six months, one game under Hooded Horse received a total of 7,355 Steam store page visits through the "Discounts & Events" recommendation feed, with an astonishing 7,341 of those occurring last month alone.
The comparative data is staggering: assuming the channel previously averaged 2.8 monthly visits, Valve's changes have increased the monthly exposure from this recommendation feed to 2,621 times its previous level.
Bender pointed out, "Before this change, this traffic channel was virtually non-existent for niche indie games, but it has now leapfrogged to become the best traffic source across the entire store." He mentioned that other developers told him their games went from "almost zero visits" to "thousands of additional visits per month." Another title under Hooded Horse saw a more moderate but still considerable increase: accumulating 6,000 visits over five months, it now reaches 14,000 visits in a single month.
He also stated, "This is a win for everyone—players receive recommendations better tailored to their preferences, while publishers and developers can precisely reach their target audiences. The biggest beneficiaries are small indie teams, whose titles previously had no chance of appearing in this section."
Bender also praised the recently launched personal calendar feature (which quickly became my own favorite store feature), believing that "Steam is making historic progress in improving game discoverability, especially in its support for indie games."
He added, "Occasionally, people try to grab attention by claiming 'Steam's discovery system is broken.' In reality, given the vast number of games, creating an effective discovery system is inherently difficult. Yet, Steam's store experience remains industry-leading and continues to improve."
Earlier this year, Valve rarely made public its internal Steam operational data, revealing that nearly 6,000 games generated over $100,000 in revenue in 2025.
However, there are still numerous games with dismal sales. The widespread adoption of generative AI has further pushed up the number of new releases on Steam, with no signs of slowing down (even though many developers state they do not wish to use generative AI). It is estimated that in 2025 alone, over 5,000 games on Steam failed to earn back even the $100 store listing fee.