A game developer recently discussed the disappointing launch of their game. They believe a rare error on Steam significantly hurt sales, and consider their team particularly unlucky (according to Mein-MMO).
A painful launch
The developer of Planet Centauri, a two-dimensional sandbox game, took to Reddit to share what happened behind the scenes of the game’s launch. Development began more than a decade ago, with the game entering early access back in 2016. Over the span of eight years, the game sold more than 100,000 copies, while nearly 140,000 players added it to their wishlists.
With numbers like these, the developers had high hopes for the full release of Planet Centauri. They were counting on a boost from Steam’s “popular new releases” tab – a crucial source of visibility for small studios.
However, the reality turned out to be brutal. In the first five days after the 1.0 release, the game sold just 581 copies and didn’t even make it onto the second page of the most popular new releases. After so many years of work, the result was a real blow for the developers. For nearly a year, they had no idea what went wrong – until they received a message from Valve.
An error that hit less than 100 games
So, I just found out from the Steam support team that *Planet Centauri* had a really weird and rare bug – apparently it’s only happened to under 100 games in the last ten years! Basically, anyone who’d wishlisted the game didn’t get a notification when it actually launched. It’s a bummer because a lot of people who were interested probably didn’t even know it was out!
To put the developers’ misfortune in perspective: between 2015 and 2024, around 85,000 games were released on Steam. That means the odds of being among the roughly 100 games affected by this rare error were just 0.12%. It’s no surprise the developer likened the situation to “winning the lottery.”
Valve helped the creators of *Planet Centauri* by featuring their game in a “Deal of the Day” sale on Steam. While this offered some compensation, it came after the game had already suffered major setbacks.
Honestly, I’m just… drained. We’ve been so frustrated and disappointed with everything, and totally lost about what to do. Now that things are clearer, it just feels unfair that we can’t fix it all. We’ve had to start working on a new project because we literally can’t afford to keep patching the game. It’s tough, but we’re moving on, because what else can we do?
The devs admit their mistakes
People generally felt sorry for the developers, but some also made valid points. Several commenters noted the bad reviews for *Planet Centauri* and wondered how the game had been in development for so long. The developers responded by saying they should have started with a smaller, less complicated project.
Looking back, the developers said the solution would have been simple: they would never have created Planet Centauri. As a 2D sandbox, the game is one of the most complex ever developed in terms of coding. “It’s a nightmare on every level,” the developers admitted, noting that in the time it took to release this game, they could have created four others.
For those interested, Planet Centauri is currently available on Steam, on sale, for $11.24.
- Planet Centauri – Steam
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2025-09-16 09:40