Valve Admits It Completely Screwed a Game's Launch, Offers a 24-Hour Sale as an Apology
Imagine pouring a decade of your life into a game. You share an apartment with your co-dev to save money. You sell your fucking car to keep the lights on. Then, on launch day, the biggest gaming platform on the planet forgets to tell anyone your game exists.
This isn't some hypothetical nightmare; it's the story of Planet Centauri. The French duo behind the game, a cool-looking mix of Starbound and Pokémon, spent the last ten years of their lives building their dream project. It racked up over 138,000 wishlists on Steam. Then, in December 2024, it finally hit 1.0.
It sold 581 copies in its first week.
A Soul-Crushing Mystery
For months, the developers were in a state of "intense frustration" and "total confusion". They questioned themselves, their confidence shattered. They knew they weren't going to be the next Palworld, but 581 sales was incomprehensible.
Then, months later, they got a call from Valve. It turns out there was a "freak accident." Steam simply... failed to send out the launch notification emails to the 138,000 people who had wishlisted the game.
Their launch was kneecapped from the start. With no initial sales burst from their most dedicated fans, they never had a chance to hit the "New and Trending" or "Best Sellers" lists. The game was effectively dead on arrival, killed by a digital clerical error.
The Make-Good
"I don't even have the strength to be angry," one of the developers, Laurent Lechat, told polygon It's a devastatingly understandable reaction.
To their credit, Valve is trying to make things right. They've offered the team a coveted "Daily Deal" spot on the Steam front page to make up for the lost visibility. After consulting with other developers, many of whom said a Daily Deal had a massive impact on their own sales, the team has decided to take the offer.
What Now?
Look, maybe Planet Centauri wouldn't have been the next indie darling even with a perfect launch. Recent reviews suggest the game still feels unfinished to some. But that's not the point. The point is that these two developers sacrificed a decade of their lives and deserved a fair shot. They deserved to succeed or fail on the merits of their work, not because an algorithm forgot to press "send."
Due to the financial hit, they've had to pivot to working on a new roguelike just to stay afloat, with the hope of using those funds to eventually patch Planet Centauri. It’s a heartbreaking story, and a grim reminder that even with a good idea and years of hard work, your success can still be completely derailed by a single, invisible bug.