Videogames Industry Snapshot - October 2025
Top releases, trends and gamedev resources - state of the industry before GTA VI is released
Hello, my fellow gamedevs and gamers!
November is just here, meaning we can look back and review the videogames industry during the month of October:
Top 10 Rated Games - Strong Impact Titles
Top 3 Podium 🏆- Looking closer, analyzing the market
Trending Videogames - Be careful, wishlists increasing in 3,2,1…
Monthly Gamedev Resources 🆕- Assets, tools, tips and more
Gamedevpills Monthly Industry Snapshot is based on different metrics but the number of sales is not one of them, that number is rarely shared by publishers/devs.
Our main source is steamdb.com
Other platforms, stores (Xbox, Playstation or Nintendo) are not included.
Grab your coffee and enjoy!
Top 10 Rated - Strong October Releases
Classification based on Rating by players
It Is really interesting to see how once again Indie titles and AA are the sweet spot of the market, even with AAA releases like Ninja Gaiden 4 (15th position) and Battlefield 6 (32th Position)
Our theory about the Industry's transformation is getting stronger month after month.
Podium
1. Escape From Duckov
Escape from Duckov is a PVE indie survival RPG — in a duck’s world!. Scavenge for resources, build your hideout, and upgrade your gear in the world of Duckov. Start from nothing and rise to the top. Outwit hostile ducks, survive, or make it out alive.
Players growth since release 🔍
The success of this title since the beginning is impressive, it is an already explored idea but the Theme and the usage of 3C’s framework Character, Camera, Control are key design ingredients.
2. FLAM EVAW
In FLAM EVAW you continue to embody the community detective Maple Kurosawa, using your powerful detective and hacker skills to embark on a journey of investigation against the Rainbow Crime Organization with several female assistants.
Players growth since release 🔍
This is an interesting market lesson, Flam Evaw is a videogame within a really specific niche, it is under the genre of FMV (Full Motion Video).
FMV games are interactive experiences that primarily use live-action video rather than traditional in-game graphics.
The peak of players is just at 3K but the rating is Extremely Positive so all the players that gave it a try actually provided a really good review, but looking at the evolution after the release you can see the drop at the number of players, it probably fell into too small a niche.
3. BALL x PIT
BALL x PIT is a brick-breaking, ball-fusing, base-building survival roguelite. Batter hordes of enemies with ricocheting balls and gather the riches of the pit to expand your homestead, generate resources and recruit unique heroes.
Players growth since release 🔍
A well known publisher Devolver Digital is behind this videogame, I first knew about this title after reading some articles on substack…This is another interesting market lesson.
We have Devolver as publisher, from my point of view Top 1 in terms of indie firms and we have an interesting fresh idea: Arkanoid meets a Rogue Action RPG game, from my point of view it is a formula for a huge success and well, it had success but looking at the chart it has a tendency to decrease average number of players. Then why?
The number of players is spread across ~50 daily releases on Steam (Source) and let’s say players can have an average of focus at 2-3 titles in a weekly basis, historical hits (Counter Strike, GTA, Fifa) could be taking one of those slots already so there is just a little margin for the Indie Market and in this case I would say Escape From Duckov is taking it’s market.
Bonus - Prototyping Ball x Pit - A inspiring gamedev perspective
Viral Videogames - Followers Growth
Gamedev Resources
At this new section I would like to share tools, assets and tips that I’ve found useful to cover a specific aspect of game development, this month I wanted to focus on Level Design
LDtk - Level Design Tool
His author Sébastien Benard developed a tool to increase our chances of making a good level design, from my perspective, probably one of the most difficult aspects during game development
I developed LDtk as the backbone of my game dev life.
My first game, Nuclear Blaze, relies entirely on this tool, and was even intended as a “proof-of-concept” for it.
I tried to make it my dream tool, while keeping the scope reasonable. This means that LDtk sure has many features, but not all of them.
It is designed with user experience first in mind: do less, but do it right.
I’ve been looking at this tool during the last weekend to have a workflow when creating worlds for my games and it is awesome, it is compatible with most of the engines available, including Playdate!
Kenney Assets - Level Design Assets
If you started learning Pixel Art or just 2D/3D art in general and you feel you need more learning to create assets for your own games, don’t worry.
Kenney is a superstar of graphic design and he offers free assets to be used even with commercial purposes
You can also support his work getting the all-in-one package which also includes Audio, UI Elements, Icons…
What did you play this month? Or which indie title surprised you the most?
Share it in the comments — I’d love to include some of your picks in next month’s roundup!