MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Itch.io, the open indie game marketplace, has released a selection of impressive 2017 statistics that show not only the growth of the indie scene, but also the games that have been most successful on the platform. Of the 100,864 project pages that were created on the site, 68,526 games were actually published. That’s a huge number of games that eclipses the 6000+ released on Steam in 2017, though this is to be expected considering the smaller, more experimental nature of itch.io.
These numbers depict a healthy indie scene which has created 12.5TB of game data over the year, with 1,646 different game jams that had 45,551 participants between them. Game jams are a strong focus of itch.io’s review of 2017, with separate lists of the best performing games created for jams, along with stats for the most popular jams themselves.
The Game Maker’s Toolkit Jam and Github Game Off put up a close fight for first place, with 2,857 and 2,649 participants respectively. Though, the Game Maker’s Toolkit Jam far outperformed the Github Game Off in terms of submissions, with 759 games to 208. That gives Github an average team size of 12 and a bit, while Game Maker’s Toolkit’s average team size was just over 3.75. Though, this ignores teams that didn’t submit a game, or individuals that dropped out.
The full collection of top ten lists in itch.io’s review of 2017 also shows the best selling paid games, along with the most downloaded free games, plus lists of games that received the most tips above their asking price. Some notable names that appear here include Fez, which is now over five years old and sits at number 3 on the most purchased paid games of 2017 list, Kentucky Route Zero, found on the most-tipped list, and Everything, which is one of the most purchased paid games and the most tipped of 2017.
[Via GamaSutra]
