How well is Valve faring with its current approach to direct publishing on Steam? It’s doing well, for the most part — but things aren’t all rosy for some studios. Valve has published a “data deep dive” for sales of paid games, revealing that the first full year of Steam Direct led to a 24 percent increase in initial earnings (the first two weeks) for the median game in 2019 versus 2018. That sounds good at first blush, but Valve noted that the figures varied wildly depending on a game’s overall ranking.

Titles in the 75th percentile (that is, making more than 75 percent of new releases) earned a whopping 56 percent more in 2019 than in 2018. However, those below the 35th percentile actually earned less — about 17 percent less if they were in the 25th percentile. Many game studios thrived under Steam Direct, in other words, but those that didn’t tended to struggle.