Variable game pricing is producing notable results across the industry. Valor Mortis, a Napoleonic Soulslike, launched at $40 and has already recouped its initial investment. On PC, Star Wars Zero Company reached one million sales at a $50 price point.
For smaller studios, however, pricing at the lower end of the market can be difficult. Cassia Curran, a specialist in game pricing, believes Hollow Knight: Silksong has created an especially demanding benchmark for similarly sized indie releases.
“Hollow Knight kind of annoyed me. I was like, ‘Oh god, please price it higher.’ $24.99 would have made a big difference to a lot of studios that have similar games,” Curran told The Game Business.
Silksong became a major commercial success despite its higher production values, approximately seven-year development period and roughly 30-hour single-player campaign. Team Cherry set its launch price at $20, only $5 above the original Hollow Knight’s unusually low 2017 launch price.
That combination of scale, popularity and affordability has made Silksong a difficult comparison for other developers. As one of Steam’s most popular games in 2025 and a strong Game of the Year contender alongside major AAA releases, it has raised expectations for what a $20 game can deliver.
The pressure behind low indie prices
Curran argues that developers are facing substantial downward pressure on prices, particularly as the platform fills with low-cost and low-effort releases. She operates a pricing analysis tool that helps developers examine successful models on Valve’s storefront.
Her advice is to study the closest competitors within the same genre. A roguelike or metroidvania may struggle to charge more than its most successful rivals unless it can clearly explain the additional value. Those established prices can create a ceiling, even when that ceiling does not adequately support a project’s development costs.
The same issue appeared with Tribute Games’ Scott Pilgrim EX. The retro pixel-art beat ’em up launched on Steam at $30, a price that drew resistance from many users. Although the game was broadly regarded as a strong modern homage to River City Ransom, its performance on the platform was weak.
Several months later, Yacht Club Games released Mina the Hollower at $20 and appeared to achieve better results. The contrast illustrates how strongly genre expectations and familiar price points can influence a game’s reception, even when the underlying products are well made.
When imitation makes pricing harder
The growing volume of cheaply produced games has made it harder for independent developers to stand out and justify a premium. Developers must also contend with people using generative AI to create imitation projects that can appear soon after an original release.
That risk has already encouraged some studios to abandon open playtests and free Steam demos. For developers, those community-building tools can also expose ideas early enough for near-identical competitors to reach the market within days.
The lesson extends beyond digital storefronts. Anyone comparing the value of a home arcade setup can start with RETROCADE’s Arcade Machine Buying Guide, then browse the wider arcade machine range and follow the latest arcade industry coverage. In both cases, the right comparison depends on what the product delivers—not simply the lowest headline price.
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