Game Dev

Steam gets 100,000 new players EVERY DAY!

Steam is already insanely massive, it has supposed already over 1 BILLION accounts, and just a while ago hit a new record with 40 MILLION Concurrent Users! That's a ton of people online at the same time, insane!

And yet, most insane of all is how despite being so massive it just keeps growing! Last month at Devcom 2025 Valve had a talk where they showcased a bunch of statistics from the platform, and yup they are impressive.

There is a Korean website that recorded the pictures which are full of juicy stats. Most impressive of all is how despite being massive they still get 100,000 new players every single day! Meaning those are all people that are making their very first Steam purchase every single day. In 2024 there were 500 games that earned more than $4 million gross revenue which is 2x the amount back in 2020, and 2025 is on track to be 20% higher.

They have recently expanded the Daily Deal slots to 6 per day giving 4000 games a chance at a slot this year. According to Chris Zukowski if your game gets around 100 reviews in the first month of release then go ahead and contact support to see if you can get a Daily deal slot (which can be worth $20k in a single day)

For games that get tons of reviews they have started showcasing a score that displays only the reviews in the player's language, so for example your game might be Very Positive in English but Mixed in Chinese.

And speaking of language, out of that massive player base there are only 33% English users! The number one language is actually Chinese at 33.6%! Then you have Russian, Spanish and Brazilian. So take this as a reminder to Localize your games! This is super important! I have a lecture on Unity's Localization package in my Ultimate Unity Overview course.

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Game Dev

Nintendo is coming for your summons!

Nintendo is a company responsible for many awesome things. They have made lots of consoles and super cool games that have given joy to millions of people! Just recently they had their latest direct where they announced a remaster of Super Mario Galaxy 1/2, Mario Tennis Fever, Pokémon Pokopia, and even a Virtual Boy emulator!

But Nintendo is also responsible for some pretty terrible practices in the industry, like going after streamers with DMCA takedowns, actively punishing their biggest fans who just love their games and want to share that love.

They are also very litigious and just now they apparently managed to patent the concept of "summoning a creature to fight" which is an insanely broad mechanic that would affect hundreds or thousands of games. I am not a lawyer so I know nothing about the specifics for how patents work but this seems insanely broad to me. In World of Warcraft as a Necromancer you can summon zombies to fight for you. In Dark Souls you can summon your friends to help you fight. In Diablo/Final Fantasy/Fire Emblem/Really any RPG you always have a class that can summon some creature to fight. Will all these games get sued by Nintendo?

This is a sad reminder of how something super cool like the Nemesis system is actually patented, that's why you don't see many games build upon that super cool mechanic. Same thing for how there was a patent on mini-games during loading screens for 20 years.

Will this be enforceable? Should you as an indie dev worry about this? Honestly I have no idea. I would guess that at some point Nintendo will try to enforce this patent, and then it will go to the courts and it will be decided whether they themselves are the only ones that can use such a generic mechanic or not. I hope not.

Tech

The thinnest iPhone ever, does it matter?

Apple just had their big yearly event where they announced lots of stuff. There's the iPhone 17 regular, Pro and Max, there's a new Apple Watch, AirPods and iOS 26 coming out on Monday.

The more interesting one is iPhone 17 Air, this is the thinnest iPhone ever at just 5.6mm and weighing only 165 grams! This is definitely an impressive feat of engineering, it's amazing how they can fit all those components in such a tiny package. But of course the question is does this matter? Personally I think phones have been more than thin enough for the past 10 years, I even always use a case on my phones, mainly to make it more grippy.

The specs are truly impressive, it's got an excellent 6.5 inch screen with up to 120Hz, 3000 nits peak outdoor brightness and despite being so thin it is made with titanium and ceramic glass which makes it quite durable.

However one piece of engineering that apparently cannot be shrunk any more is the camera, so while the whole phone is super thin, there is a very noticeable camera bump.

Fun

Gamification done right!

Recently there was a new app reaching the top of the charts that seems to be a great positive way to do gamification! Sometimes gamification can be used for a negative purpose, like getting people to spend more money on in-app purchases or getting them addicted to slot machines or things like that.

But here is Focus Friend which is intended to help you stay off your phone and do something more productive!

You have a bean friend, and your goal is to just let it do some knitting. However it can only knit while you're not touching your phone, if you pick it up to look at Instagram or something you disrupt your bean friend and it has to start from scratch, so it really encourages you to keep off your phone. It has a really cozy cute artstyle, and as the bean knits you get outfits to wear and furniture to populate your room.

Oh and this is also one of the many projects by Hank Green, it's unbelievable just how many cool things he's involved in!