Steam glitch hid Planet Centauri from 138K wishlisters — indie sold just 581 copies on launch week

Valve has told the French developers behind Planet Centauri that Steam failed to notify users who had the game on their wishlists, which cut launch visibility and left the studio with very low first-week sales despite years of development work.

• What happened: Steam did not send wishlist notifications at launch.
• Impact: The game sold just 581 copies in its first week after a decade in Early Access.
• Response: Valve offered a placement on Steam’s Daily Deal to make up for lost visibility.
• Next steps: The developers accepted the Daily Deal and are continuing work on a new game while planning further support.

What went wrong

The indie title Planet Centauri on Steam launched to very low sales because Steam did not notify users who had added the game to their wishlists. As a result, the many players who had already shown interest were not alerted that the game had reached 1.0.

Developers discovered the problem only after the launch performed far below expectations. “We never understood why until today,” Laurent Lechat wrote on social media earlier this month. The studio later learned the platform had failed to send those wishlist notifications — a technical issue that gutted the game’s launch visibility.

For more context on Early Access launch trends, see this analysis on should you do Early Access, which notes that successful Early Access games often earn more at 1.0 — provided they reach players at launch.

Launch numbers and early history

Planet Centauri had been in Early Access for about a decade and accumulated roughly 103,000 units sold during that period. The game also secured just over 138,000 wishlist placements on Steam before the 1.0 launch.

However, in the first week after the official 1.0 release in December 2024, the studio reported selling only 581 copies. Without those initial purchases from wishlisters, the game missed the visibility needed for New and Trending or Best Sellers — and that dramatically affected discoverability.

The game’s launch trailer still performed reasonably well on YouTube, getting just under 500,000 views, which showed there was interest even if Steam’s notifications failed to reach potential buyers.

Developer reaction

The low launch numbers left the team confused and frustrated. Lechat described months of “intense” frustration, saying the team was “questioning themselves” and felt a “loss of confidence.” In public comments he accepted some responsibility but highlighted how baffling the result was: “We are of course perfectly aware of our own responsibility in the result,” Lechat says, “but 500 sales in 5 days was totally incomprehensible.”

Valve’s response

Valve contacted the developers to explain the notification failure and offered to place Planet Centauri on Steam’s Daily Deal as compensation. Valve said the Daily Deal would appear as a pop-up for Steam users and could also appear on sale-focused pages, which could restore some of the lost visibility from launch day.

Will the Daily Deal help?

The developers considered the offer carefully. Feedback from other studios suggested a Daily Deal can meaningfully increase revenue — one developer reported about 10 times their usual revenue during a Daily Deal — but the boost is still uncertain and lasts only 24 hours.

After weighing the options, the team decided to accept the Daily Deal. Lechat wrote on Reddit, “I don’t even have the strength to be angry,” and later added, “It’s possible that Steam could have offered something more substantial,” and, “But in any case, reality is what it is, and we won’t change it, so we might as well accept everything, take a breath and move forward.”

Financial context and next steps

The two-person studio had already made financial sacrifices to finish Planet Centauri: they shared an apartment for years, one developer sold his car, and the other recently moved to a distant village to reduce costs. Those measures helped them stay afloat during development.

Because of the weak launch, the studio said it could not justify continued major updates to Planet Centauri without more revenue. At the same time, they are working on a new roguelike using the same engine, which they hope to release in about a year. That project is intended to help fund future patches for Planet Centauri.

For the public thread that documented the issue and developer discussion, see the Reddit post reporting the incident: this Reddit thread.