UNIT.City — місце, де люди працюють... КРАЩЕ! Обирай свій простір просто зараз 👉
Олександр КузьменкоGameDev Eng
22 September 2025, 17:12
2025-09-22
"We were invisible". A rare Steam bug prevented developers from announcing the release of their indie game to 130,000 players who were expecting it
Permadeath Studios sold over 100,000 copies of its game Planet Centauri in the nearly 10 years since its release in Early Access. During that time, it was added to the wishlists of around 130,000 players, and the developers hoped that this would lead to a sales boost on the day of the full version’s release. However, it went largely unnoticed, and it wasn’t until nine months later that Permadeath learned the reason.
Permadeath Studios sold over 100,000 copies of its game Planet Centauri in the nearly 10 years since its release in Early Access. During that time, it was added to the wishlists of around 130,000 players, and the developers hoped that this would lead to a sales boost on the day of the full version’s release. However, it went largely unnoticed, and it wasn’t until nine months later that Permadeath learned the reason.
Planet Centauri is a 2D sandbox game combining elements of survival, creature collecting, and automation that was released in 2016, PC Gamer reports.
«We sold… 581 copies in 5 days. The game didn’t even appear on the second page; we were invisible; we were a complete failure. And to this day we don’t understand why,» said Permadeath developer Laurent Leshat.
After nine months of frustration, Permadeath finally received an explanation from Valve: when Planet Centauri finally came out, none of those who had added it to their wishlist knew about it because Steam didn’t send out a release notification.
In an email to Permadeath, Valve said that the launch of Planet Centauri 1.0 was affected by «a bug that affected a very small number of releases (less than 100 games since 2015) where launch emails were not sent.»
Of course, not all 130,000 wishlists would have converted into copies sold, but this bug prevented Planet Centauri from gaining a decisive boost and positive factors for Steam’s search algorithms. If launch notifications were sent to interested players, the project could also be noticed by content creators, who could further spread the word in the attention economy.
In its email, Valve offered Permadeath the opportunity to feature Planet Centauri as one of Steam’s daily deals «as a way to make up for the lost visibility.»
«Now we know, we understand better that it’s unfair and there’s nothing we can do to change it. We started a second project because it’s financially impossible to continue fixing our game, and we’re moving forward because it’s the only thing that can be done,» Leshat said.
The developer noted that he shared his story to «express his anger» and also to draw attention to «the problems that a platform that occupies 99% of the PC gaming market can cause when the mechanisms do not work as they should.»
«Навіть для виробників трун і пам’ятників я писав тексти». Як стати game-тестувальником під час війни: історія колишнього металурга, страховика, копірайтера
34-річний Андрій Зубков під час війни увійшов в IT, докорінно змінивши свою кар'єру і буденне життя. Тепер він QA Engineer у компанії Pingle Game Studio — тестує ігри. А до цього працював на металургійному комбінаті, в страхуванні та навіть копірайтером. Свою історію про вхід в нове життя Андрій розповів dev.ua.
Хто такий Unity Developer: основні задачі, обов’язки та зона відповідальності. Огляд професії від Team Lead Unity у Pingle Game Studio
Продовжуємо цикл матеріалів про ІТ-спеціальності. Кожну описує «типовий представник» — досвідчений фахівець і просто авторитетний колега, та сама людина, яка знає всі таємні куточки своєї професії. Ми сподіваємося, ці матеріали допоможуть школярам, студентам, перекваліфікантам, студентам і всім тим, хто зацікавлений у виборі ІТ-спеціальності. Цикл не тільки допоможе оцінити перспективи, а й дасть можливість краще зрозуміти індустрію і особливості професії зсередини. Обговорюйте і доповнюйте матеріал в коментарях, щоб зробити його ще корисніше.
Про професію Unity Developer розповідає Володимир Мельничук, Team Lead Unity у Pingle Game Studio.
