Articles

Long-form pieces that go deeper than a database row. Methodology, contract negotiation and market data, written to be useful regardless of whether you ever pay us.

For indie developers

The indie game Steam launch checklist for 2026

2026-05-30 · 11 min read

A practical, sequenced checklist for launching an indie game on Steam in 2026: wishlists, the Steam page, festivals, pricing, review targets, and the post-launch tail that actually drives revenue.

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How to pitch an indie game to a publisher in 2026

2026-05-05 · 9 min read

A working playbook for indie devs: what publishers actually read, the four red-flag clauses to negotiate out of every contract, and how to use indielist to short-list before you write a single email.

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For investors and analysts

How indie game sales estimates actually work — the white-box Boxleiter method

2026-05-05 · 7 min read

Every sales-estimate page on indielist comes with the formula expanded. This article walks through what Boxleiter is, why a single NB number is misleading, and how the multi-factor adjustment makes the estimate believable.

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For players

Analysis

Data-grounded analysis: written from indielist's tracked numbers, with the ranked list re-read live on each visit.

Data reports

Live rankings assembled from indielist data. These update as the data changes.