The best games ever made and “uhh it’s balatro but with throwing darts”.

Aside from being addictive, Balatro’s a popular game because it plays well on any medium. Deck-builder rogue-likes are phone friendly, PC friendly, and not entirely unapproachable on console.

AAA and “real indie games” are a tiny minority of the games on steam.

That’s all true. But even if we cut out the click-bait and the slop, lots of games fail on their own merits.

240 games in 2026 “worth spending money on” is not a dire portrait of AAA slurping up the market space.

Yeah, I absolutely agree. Adding in the denominator counts for a lot. I might caveat that with the question “Are those 240 games any good?” Because it’s very possible that slop games are what pull in all the revenue, while quality titles flounder. But, again, that would require some real actual journalism instead of click-bait rage-bait headlines.

Incidentally, has anyone asked about the state of game journalism recently? What are those stats looking like?