Indie tag
Tag created in June 2017
Indie's popularity amongst developers
This chart shows the amount of games released over the years with the Indie tag and the percentage of games released on Steam they account for. The releases count conveys the quantity of games published on Steam each year. It usually follows the increasing amount of Steam games released.
The percentage, on the other hand, gives a better idea of the trend a tag follows. It shows if, in proportion, the Indie tag is getting more or less popular from a developer's perspective. The Review chart can let us know if this trend is a positive thing (i.e. players interest for the tag is growing) or a negative one (the tag is overcrowded).
The Indie game tag peaked in 2018 with 5680 games released. The popularity of the tag is in a range between 8.6% in 2018 and 2.7% in 2023.
Bear in mind that 2023 is not over yet. The number of releases will continue to increase, but the percentage is already a good estimate of things to come.
Indie's popularity amongst players
This chart shows the reviews for games with the Indie tag, either as count and as a percentage of all Steam reviews, and the average value for a game. If the chart is cluttered, you can always deactivate some lines by clicking on the legend.
The review count gives a view of the sheer amount of reviews a tag receives, but it also follows the popularity of Steam itself. That is why the normalized value as a percentage of all Steam reviews is often more interesting, as it gives you the popularity trend for Indie tag games.
A typical game associated with this tag collected on average between 45 (2010) and 629 (2014) reviews. Bear in mind that it is the average, and it can be strongly influenced by extreme values, like the release of a very popular game with this tag.
The reviews per game as a percentage of the average show that games in the Indie tag received between 57% (2020) and 133% (2011) reviews compared to other tags.
Price of games tagged with Indie
This graph displays the evolution of the Indie tag's games price in USD over the years, and the percentage of free to play games in this tag. Bear in mind that there is inflation over time, which means that a price should slowly increase just to keep the same value.
The median price for Indie games peaked in 2006 at 9.99$, and bottomed in 2015 at 4.99$. The percentage of free to play peaked in 2020 at 15%, and bottomed in 2023 at 1%.
Positive reviews ratio for Indie, per language
This chart shows an aggregated Steam rating for all the Indie tag games, classed by language. It helps estimate how different audiences judge a game with this tag. A lower rating doesn't always mean that the audience doesn't enjoy that particular tag, as some cultures tend to always give lower scores. But it will affect a game's rating nonetheless.
The best rating for Indie games is 94% for the Romanian audience, and the worst is 83% for the Japanese audience.
| Image | Name | Description | Price | Rating | Release Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
  | Darwinia | Combining fast-paced action with strategic battle planning, Darwinia features a novel and intuitive control mechanism, a graphical style ripped from 80's retro classics like Tron and Defender, and a story concerning a tribe of nomadic sprites trapped in a modern 3D world. | 9.99 | 77.5% | Jul 14, 2005 |
  | RIP - Trilogy™ | With the completion of the third title in the RIP series, the RIP games have become an instant classic in the arcade-shooter genre. RIP Trilogy brings all three RIP titles into one exciting and heart-pounding pack.RIPNot afraid of Death? What if he is accompanied by Halloween and Rock-N-Roll? | 4.99 | 64.7% | Jun 1, 2007 |
  | Poker Superstars II | You've been invited back for Season 2! Poker Superstars II raises the stakes with more superstars, a bigger tournament and a brand new poker AI. Import your own photo into the game and become a Poker Superstar. | 9.99 | 46.2% | Oct 5, 2006 |
  | RoboBlitz | RoboBlitz™ is a humorous, physics-based action game full of inventive gizmos, weapons, characters, and environments. Players take on the role of Blitz, a multi-talented robot who must activate an aging Space Cannon to save his world from a band of maladjusted space pirates. | 9.99 | 78.6% | Nov 7, 2006 |
  | Bullet Candy | Bullet Candy is a fast paced, action packed arena shooter. There are a variety of combo systems and many secret techniques that you can employ to get the best score and weapon upgrades possible. Viewed from a top-down perspective, Bullet Candy allows for a true 360° shoot-em-up experience. | 3.99 | 48.4% | Feb 14, 2007 |
  | Axel & Pixel | Axel and Pixel are trapped in a beautiful but dangerous dream world. If they plan to get out they must solve its mysteries. Drawn by hand and rendered in full high-definition, Axel & Pixel is a unique journey through an artist's dream. | 4.99 | 72.2% | Oct 6, 2010 |
  | Gish | Gish isn't your average hero. In fact, he's not your average anything...you see, Gish is a ball of tar. A Sunday stroll with his lady friend, Brea, goes awry when a shadowy figure emerges from an open manhole and pulls Brea below ground. | 9.99 | 61.8% | Jul 20, 2007 |
  | Gumboy Tournament | Test your reflexes, judgment and tactics while facing up to eight other players in this follow-up to the critically acclaimed and popular arcade game Gumboy: Crazy Adventures, winner of numerous accolades including Gametunnel's GAME OF THE YEAR 2006. | 2.99 | 72.3% | May 19, 2008 |
  | Ninja Reflex: Steamworks Edition | Master the Art of Speed and become a Ninja Gamer! Ninja Reflex uses martial arts challenges to test your reflexes, sharpen your hand-eye coordination, and measure your reaction times to the millisecond. Wield throwing stars, katanas, nunchucks...even chopsticks! | 4.99 | 88.7% | Mar 21, 2008 |
  | The Wonderful End of the World | You can't save the whole world. It's going to be eaten by a mythological demon with the head of a fish. But as a puppet that absorbs all it touches, you can try to rescue as much of Earth's greatness as you can before the end arrives. In the beginning, you roam the Earth, capable of absorbing only the tiniest of objects. | 9.99 | 78% | Jul 17, 2008 |
  | Planet Busters | Planet Busters is a new single-player game from Slam, combining puzzle-solving action with awesome firepower and spectacular explosions. The mysterious Scourge have destroyed Earth. Now it’s payback time. | 9.99 | N/A | Jun 30, 2008 |
  | Everyday Shooter | Everyday Shooter is an album of games exploring the expressive power of abstract shooters. Dissolute sounds of destruction are replaced with guitar riffs harmonizing over an all-guitar soundtrack, while modulating shapes celebrate the flowing beauty of geometry. | 9.99 | 93.3% | May 8, 2008 |
  | Chaos Theory | Meet Chaos Theory! A balanced mix of arcade gameplay and challenging physics-based puzzle solving.The main objective in Chaos Theory is to fill "Collectors" with magnetically charged particles. Those particles move freely in the environment and are influenced by other objects and their magnetic forces. | 2.99 | 80% | May 22, 2008 |
  | Eternity's Child | Eternity's Child, a quirky, hand drawn next generation 2D platformer is based on a fairy tale by Luc Bernard. It arrives on Steam with exclusive Steam Only levels and HD Resolution. Features: Beautiful 2D graphics with one of the most unique art direction done in a videogame Orchestral Soundtrack Game to be updated with new levels and... | 4.99 | 14.6% | Jul 31, 2008 |
  | Galactic Bowling | Galactic Bowling is an exaggerated and stylized bowling game with an intergalactic twist. Players will engage in fast-paced single and multi-player competition while being submerged in a unique new universe filled with over-the-top humor, wild characters, unique levels, and addictive game play. | 19.99 | 33.3% | Oct 21, 2008 |
  | Mr. Robot | Asimov is a lowly service mechanoid aboard the interstellar colony ship Eidolon. Carrying hundreds of frozen human colonists to a new world. When the Eidolon's computer brain malfunctions, it falls to Asimov to undertake a perilous journey through the bowels of the massive ship to save his robot friends and the precious human cargo. Mr. | 7.99 | 82.7% | Nov 3, 2008 |
  | Madballs in Babo:Invasion | Now with cross-platform multiplayer! PC vs. Mac at last. | 4.99 | 84.5% | Sep 17, 2009 |
  | The Maw | The pinnacle of alien evolution, Maw is a cowardly fat blob concerned mostly with snacking and lounging. He can, however, absorb the traits of anything he eats, is virtually indestructible, and can grow to unlimited size. If he wasn't a danger to all life in the universe, he'd make the perfect pet. | 9.99 | 83.2% | Mar 9, 2009 |
  | Fatale | "Salomé, Salomé, dance for me. I pray thee dance for me. I am sad to-night. Yes, I am passing sad to-night. When I came hither I slipped in blood, which is an evil omen; and I heard, I am sure I heard in the air a beating of wings, a beating of giant wings. I cannot tell what they mean .... I am sad to-night. Therefore dance for me. | 6.99 | 53.8% | Nov 4, 2009 |
  | Space Giraffe | Space Giraffe is an abstract action arcade style game that takes place in a succession of beautiful environments generated by an advanced graphics synthesizer. It presents itself as a shooter but the more you play the more you discover the hidden depths and strategies that make the gameplay satisfyingly rich and rewarding. | 9.99 | 75.4% | Mar 19, 2009 |