LogInIn this article celebrating 80 Level's 10th anniversary, explore how the indie game market has transformed over the past decade and why indies are now outpacing AAA titles.
How The Indie Games Market Has Changed
The indie game market is valued at $4.85 billion in 2025 and is expected to expand to $9.55 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.54%.
The main forces behind this growth include the rise of digital distribution in Asia, wider access to game engines and dev tools, and cloud-based indie publishing partnerships. Each of these factors contributes more than +2% to the CAGR forecast for the indie game sector.
Back in 2015, only 1,951 indie games were released on Steam. By 2024, the figure had jumped to 8,554. It's the highest number of indie game releases ever in a year!
Although only 7,549 indie games have been released so far in 2025, we can still expect another strong year for indie game launches.
Indie Revenue Growth Outpaces AA and AAA
Surprisingly, indie game revenues are growing faster than those of AA and AAA titles. According to Bain’s analysis, indie PC revenues have increased at a compound annual rate of 22% between 2018 and 2024, compared to just 8% for AA and AAA games.
What’s even more remarkable is that this surge happened without a major change in indies’ share of total games available on Steam.
Success Still Takes Luck
However, a deeper look at Steam data reveals a winner-takes-all pattern. In a study of the top-performing 100 indie games of 2024, just over 8% of these titles captured 80% of the total revenue. If we take the full author’s sample of 12,000 indie games, fewer than 0.5% of them account for 80% of the revenue made in the market.
Moreover, much of the indie growth is driven by Triple I Indies that are still operating independently but have budgets and teams close to AAA projects. A decade ago, these studios were far from financially dominant, but that changed during COVID, when millions of players actively started to discover indie hits. In 2024, Triple I Indies brought in 53% of all indie revenue, leaving smaller developers competing to be seen.
Thus, the indie scene is thriving, with more tools and opportunities in the market. But as barriers to entry fall, competition rises. Success now depends not just on the popularity of studios, the quality of games, and marketing tactics, but also on what truly makes a game stand out.
Stay ahead of gaming industry trends with our anniversary articles. The next one will explore the most in-demand gamedev jobs and compare them with the roles that were popular 10 years ago. Don’t miss it!