Valve accidentally smothers indie game with 138,000 wishlists by not telling anyone it existed, then apologizes to studio by accidentally revealing Steam Machine on the same day of promotion

After Steam offered to give it front page placement as an apology for having its launch kneecapped by a Steam bug, Planet Centauri once again missed out on getting eyes on it because of Valve.

Developer Permadeath made the indie space sandbox game over 10 years, and it had eventually amassed 138,000 wishlists on Steam – before facing a disastrous launch. A Steam bug made it so wishlist emails weren't sent out, and Planet Centauri, in turn, sold only 581 copies in the first five days of its 1.0 launch.

As an apology, Valve allowed Planet Centauri to appear as one of the Steam front page's big Daily Deals. The date the developers chose for their deal was November 12, 2025. So, if you looked on the Steam front page on that day, you would, in fact, see Planet Centauri… but you would also see the newly announced Steam Machine, Steam Frame VR headset, and the new Steam controller taking centre stage.

Speaking to Polygon about the unfortunate progression of events, Planet Centauri developer Laurent Lechat said, "The day was chosen more or less randomly on our end," and given that Valve wouldn't just reveal its plans when that date was chosen, it really was "just bad luck and we must accept it."

Lechat also explained that Planet Centauri sold less on its big deal day than when the news of Steam's wishlist glitch went viral; Planet Centauri sold about 5,000 copies as a part of the Daily Deal.

Still, Lechat adds that, even if it "seems like a small amount," those 5,000 copies "will be a great help because it's enough for us to survive for at least a year and allow us to finish our second game, which is currently in development."

Over 5,000 games released on Steam this year didn't make enough money to recover the $100 fee to put a game on Valve's store, research estimates