Planet Centauri, an indie sandbox game, faced a disappointing launch after more than a decade in early access, where it had garnered over 130,000 wishlists and sold over 100,000 copies. The team at Permadeath was left frustrated when only 581 units sold on release day.

“The game didn’t even appear on page 2; we were invisible; we were a total flop. And we never understood why until today.”
- Laurent Lechat, Developer

Nine months later, Valve informed Permadeath that a bug had caused Steam to not notify users who wished for the game about its release. This oversight significantly impaired the game’s visibility on the platform, as it failed to capitalize on initial momentum due to the lack of customer notifications.

The developers believe that had notifications been sent, it might have helped them enter the competitive landscape of Steam’s discovery engine. As a result, Permadeath is shifting their focus onto a new project, given the infeasibility of supporting the earlier launch due to its disappointing outcome.

“Now we know, we understand better, it’s unfair, and we can’t change anything… we’ve started a second project because it’s financially impossible to continue patching our game.”
- Laurent Lechat

This experience highlights the potential pitfalls of depending on a single platform owning a large share of a market, and how technical issues can have significant impacts on the success of indie titles.