It has been an exceptionally busy week for the prodigious game publisher Hard Shark Games. On September 15, the company made headlines across the PC gaming community by releasing an astonishing 29 games on Steam in a single day, spanning a remarkably wide variety of genres.
Not only did Hard Shark Games publish that staggering volume of software, but the company is also officially credited as the developer for every single one of them. True to a recurring formula, every title launched into Steam’s Early Access program. "We’re launching in Early Access to involve the community from the very start," reads the opening sentence of the early access descriptions for every single game released by Hard Shark Games in September 2026. The diverse catalog covers everything from racing and retail simulators to survival horror, sports games, flight simulators, and 2D platformers.
This mass-release strategy is not a new endeavor for the publisher. The exact same pattern was visible on March 4 of the previous year, when Hard Shark Games deployed another batch of 29 titles. Visitors browsing the store page for Speedboat Simulator will find the exact phrase: "We’re launching in Early Access to involve the community from the very start." The identical opening line appears on the store page for Toy Battlegrounds: Shoot ‘Em Up Survival, and across numerous other listings in their catalog.
The copy-paste approach extends far beyond initial marketing blurbs and stretches directly into development updates. Update notes published on March 5 for Starship Fighters, Sky Combat, and Streets of Rageness—released within five minutes of each other—feature identical changelogs. The first sentence of each update reads: "Optimized several core systems, resulting in smoother gameplay and up to 10% better overall performance, especially during longer sessions."
Given the sheer volume of releases and their low-budget aesthetic, casual observers might wonder if such a strategy is financially viable. Surprisingly, the math behind Steam’s publishing fees and estimated revenue suggests that mass-producing these projects can be a profitable enterprise.
Opening a Steam store page requires a standard $100 fee, which Valve recoups once a game generates more than $1,000 in adjusted gross revenue. Publishing 29 games required an upfront investment of $2,900 in store listing fees. While the titles often display rudimentary promotional artwork and feature AI disclosures exclusively for their capsule art rather than core development, players and analysts are tracking their sales using established estimation models.
Applying the popular Boxleiter Method—which utilizes public Steam review counts to estimate total sales—reveals that titles like Supermarket Life Simulator could have grossed anywhere from $295 on the lower end to $885 as a high estimate. Other titles show even higher potential projections; Pool is estimated to have brought in between $926 and $2,780, while F1 Simulator ranges from a conservative $562 to $1,686.
When tallying the conservative low-end estimates of just those three titles out of the 29 released last week, the games generated $1,783 within five days of release. That figure covers well over half of the publisher’s total upfront store listing outlay in less than a week. If the higher revenue estimates prove accurate, the $2,900 investment has already been cleared, turning the prolific publishing operation into a profitable venture.
Of course, these calculations assume that the games cost nothing to produce, which is unlikely despite their low-effort presentation. For instance, Supermarket Life Simulator appears to utilize the $50 "Checkout Frenzy – Convenience Store Simulator" template from the Unity Asset Store, a framework shared by many low-cost retail simulators on the platform. While using prefabricated templates is a common practice among indie developers, comparisons between the game’s media and the Unity asset screenshots reveal nearly identical grocery imagery. Steam user reviews frequently accuse the publisher of releasing straight asset flips, a critique that has been leveled against Hard Shark Games across community watch groups multiple times.
Other anomalies have caught the attention of the community, such as promotional screenshots for the appropriately titled Axe Slasher appearing to feature character models resembling Kratos from the God of War series.
In total, Hard Shark Games maintains 217 listings on Steam, encompassing 121 games and 96 demos. Despite the massive library, player engagement metrics remain remarkably low. The highest peak concurrent player figure across the publisher’s entire catalog sits at just 13 users. Curiously, that record-high milestone belongs to a demo—Supermarket Simulator Pro Demo—which is no longer available on the platform.
While everyday player counts for these titles are minimal, the operational model of pumping out extremely cheap, template-based software at a rapid pace appears financially capable of yielding a tidy sum of revenue for the creator behind the enterprise. Media inquiries sent to Hard Shark Games seeking further insight into their development methodology have yet to receive a response.
Despite their high output, Hard Shark Games is not the most prolific publisher operating on Steam. Other entities have pushed the boundaries of volume even further, with BFG Entertainment having released an astonishing 555 games, and PlayWay—widely recognized as a spiritual home for fast-turnaround simulation titles—boasting a catalog of 340 games.
Top Steam games by revenue (September 8 – 15)
The weekly Steam revenue charts highlighted several major shifts in player spending and game launches. Topping the revenue charts in its launch week was Wardogs, a rare early access multiplayer launch that managed to bypass the usual wave of technical criticism and win over players with its cooperative mechanics.
Meanwhile, The Blood of Dawnwalker slipped from the number one spot down to tenth place following its strong debut week, representing a solid performance for a single-player role-playing game on PC. The title outperformed the PC release of Onimusha, which fell to thirteenth place after ranking sixth the previous week, though industry analysts note that the latter title is likely performing much stronger on console platforms like PlayStation.
Rounding out the notable chart entries, Halloween: The Game secured a spot in the top ten despite remaining unavailable for purchase in Australia due to regulatory authorities refusing classification over its depictions of incentivized drug use.
Last week’s Steam deep cuts
Away from the massive blockbusters and the high-volume asset publishers, Steam continues to host a diverse array of experimental indie releases and niche retro-styled projects, maintaining the platform’s reputation as a sprawling ecosystem for every conceivable corner of interactive entertainment.
