AAA, AA, Indie: What 2024's Game Data Tells Us About Winning on Steam
Lessons learned from the top 50 AAA, AA, and Indie titles on Steam.
Rather than focusing solely on the top-performing games of 2024, I wanted to explore what it takes to succeed across different levels of the games industry: AAA, AA, and Indie. These categories face vastly different challenges in player expectations, marketing budgets, and production scales. By segmenting top-performing games into these three groups, we can uncover more relevant insights for your studio's context.
This analysis covers the top 50 games from each category (150 titles total) released in 2024. Using data sourced from GameDiscoverCo and Gamalytic, this breakdown explores revenue trends, Early Access strategies, genre performance, and key takeaways for developers planning for 2025.
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Data Context
The data in this article is sourced from 3rd party sites GameDiscoverCo and Gamalytic. The full dataset used in this analysis is available in this Google Sheet. There are definitely more insights to be found in the data than the ones mentioned in this article. Keep in mind these are 3rd party tools and as such all the data are only estimates. This data only includes information from Steam games.
AAA vs. AA vs. Indie – Key Performance Comparisons
There is no 100% agreed upon definition of what separates AAA, AA, and Indie game studios. Since I used Gamalytic’s filtering to collect this data, we will be using their definition for these groups:
Indie: Publishers who made more than $10k and less than $50m lifetime on Steam.
AA: Publishers who published at least 2 games, made more than $50m and less than $500m lifetime on Steam.
AAA: Publishers who published at least 2 games, made more than $500m lifetime on Steam and have at least $10m average revenue per game
This means that for the purposes of this article the status of AAA, AA, & Indie has less to do with studio size and more to do with experience. They also based their definition on the publisher rather than the developer, an irrelevant point if the studio self published.
Revenue
A significant gap exists in revenue distribution across the three classes. AAA and AA titles are heavily skewed by a few massive hits, while indie titles distribute revenue more evenly.
➡️ 68.46% of total AAA revenue comes from the top 10% of AAA games.
Black Myth: Wukong – $951,505,160
HELLDIVERS 2 – $443,622,746
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 – $142,612,930
Dragon's Dogma 2 – $112,065,398
THRONE AND LIBERTY – $98,651,549
➡️ 57.14% of total AA revenue comes from the top 10% of AA games.
Palworld – $435,465,541
Path of Exile 2 – $135,369,527
The First Descendant – $113,736,614
Granblue Fantasy: Relink – $77,873,706
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl – $72,957,618
➡️ 28.78% of total Indie revenue comes from the top 10% of Indie games.
Gray Zone Warfare – $37,867,435
Supermarket Simulator – $28,815,898
Chained Together – $23,994,004
Bodycam – $20,648,426
TCG Card Shop Simulator – $20,242,415
Revenue Concentration: A small percentage of AAA and AA titles account for a majority of their revenue. Meanwhile Indie titles share the market much more evenly.
Engagement
Playtime: The average and median playtime for AAA games stayed near 39 hours while AA and Indies fluctuated greatly. AA & Indie had similar median playtimes but AAA was a solid 10 hours or more.
Indies had the highest standard deviation in playtime, indicating the widest range of gameplay experiences.
Indies had the highest median review count, median review score, and average review score. Nice.
Key Insights:
AAA games have a consistently high base line of playtime reflecting player expectation of premium in depth experiences from AAA studios. Meanwhile players are satisfied with greater variation in playtime from AA and Indie studios.
Long Playtimes Are a Common Trait: Median playtime across all classes exceeds 25 hours. Players across all categories value extended gameplay experiences, regardless of the production scale.
Indies favorable review metrics demonstrate that smaller teams often excel in innovation and delivering unique gameplay experiences that players appreciate.
Pricing
The price of games correlates strongly with their class:
AAA games cluster around higher prices ~$59.99
AA games range from $29.99 to $39.99
Indie games consistently fall below $30, with many priced around $19.99
Early Access Insights
Early Access is often a subject of debate amongst devs and players alike so I was interested to see what the successful EA titles of 2024 could teach us.
Widespread Usage in Indie and AA Games: Early Access was used in approximately 24% (36) of titles, with indie games accounting for 16% (21) and AA games for 8% (14).
Revenue Impact: Early Access games contributed 23.67% of total revenue, with indie games generating $215.5M and AA titles $527.3M.
Higher Player Engagement: Early Access titles had a median of 38.9 hours of playtime compared to 27.1 hours for full releases. EA titles also had a higher median review score of 86% versus 81% for full release.
Popular EA Genres
Multiplayer: Appears in 22 Early Access titles
Building: Appears in 15 Early Access titles
Sandbox: Appearsin 14 Early Access titles
RPG: Appears in 14 Early Access titles
Crafting: Appears in 13 Early Access titles
Iterative Content Focused Multiplayer Fun: The popular EA genres point towards a focus on open-ended experiences that encourage creative and emergent gameplay that can be enjoyed with friends. These genres are suitable for ongoing content development and refinement during Early Access. Chris over at HTMAG wrote a great article on “Crafty Buildy” games I highly recommend checking out.
Based on the data above I would suggest strongly considering if EA is right for your game if you’re an indie or AA studio releasing a crafty buildy game. A few examples of games like this include Palworld, Enshrouded, & Valheim.
Genre Insights – What Worked in 2024?
Note that the genre’s are purely based off Steam Tags. In some cases the developers use questionable tags for their games. For example Body Cam & Liar’s Bar use the VR tag while not being playable in VR.
Most Profitable Genres for AAA, AA, and Indie Titles
Key Genre Comparisons for AAA, AA, and Indie Titles
Strong AAA Genres: Story rich, Third Person, & Fantasy1
Strong AA Genres: Hack & Slash, Open World, & PVE
Strong Indie Genres: First Person, Simulation, & Exploration
Most Common Genres for AAA, AA, and Indie Titles
Given this is a list of the top 50 across every studio level and every game is a wild success it’s worth looking at the most common genres as well.
Emerging Niche Genres
Many of the most popular tags are extremely broad such as Adventure, Single player, Multiplayer, Action, etc. I was more interested in seeing niche genres that are used less frequently but perform well, so I looked at the most profitable genres that were used in between 10 to 20% percent of games on the list.
Most Profitable Genres for AAA, AA, and Indie Titles (with Usage >10% and <20%)
Genres With Highest Median Playtime
Only includes tags that were used at least 5 times in AAA, AA, & Indie titles.
Genres With High Variety Between AAA, AA, & Indie
These are genres that had a gap in popularity in at least one class compared to the others.
Conclusion
The 2024 game market revealed valuable lessons across all game classes. While AAA games continue to dominate in sheer revenue, indie, and AA titles show impressive engagement, innovation, and the ability to share the market more evenly. By focusing on strategic genre choices that match studio resources with player desire and aligning marketing with audience expectations developers at all levels can find success in 2025 and beyond!
Don’t forget to fill out the survey mentioned in the beginning of this newsletter. See you next time ✌️
AAA games revenue is heavily skewed by giant hits so the top AAA genres should be taken with a grain of salt.
This is great - not enough analysis in this level of depth and coming at the industry from this angle is happening. Any chance you're open to chatting? I've been looking at data from a similar angle and would be curious to get your take on it.
Great content…