Horses sold 18,000 copies off Steam — why indie storefronts just saved a studio

Why this matters: Horses sold well without Steam – but it’s not a happy ending

This caught my attention because it’s the clearest recent example of what happens when platform gatekeeping and community outrage collide: Santa Ragione’s art-horror Horses moved roughly 18,000 copies across GOG, itch.io and Humble in two weeks and netted about $65,000-enough to clear debts and repay loans, but not enough to immediately fund a new project or keep the team together.

• Quick take: 18K units, ~$65K net; studio saved from immediate collapse but still fragmented.
• Platforms: Banned from Steam and Epic, available on GOG, itch.io and briefly Humble (reinstated).
• Why you should care: Shows both the power of alternative storefronts and how opaque content rules can wreck devs’ plans.

Breaking down the numbers – not as rosy as headlines

The headline — 18,000 copies and $65,000 net — is real and meaningful. For a small indie it translated into repaying loans and royalties and covered the costs piling up during a rocky release. But let’s be blunt: that figure is a lifeline, not a launch fund. Santa Ragione themselves said it covered “obligations from prolonged end-of-development” rather than bankrolling a sequel.

Compare that to what a Steam release could have meant. Steam still dominates PC discoverability, and even a conservative Steam run would likely multiply those sales. The counterpoint is important: alternative stores—itch and GOG—give much higher revenue shares and direct community goodwill, so margins can be cleaner even if raw unit counts are lower.

Why Steam and Epic said no (and why their logic feels fuzzy)

Valve reportedly rejected Horses in 2023 with an automated response citing content that “shocks or disgusts,” and refused further human review. Epic reversed an earlier approval 24 hours before a planned launch. Those are blunt moves with few public explanations—exactly the kind of opaque moderation that hurts developers. When platforms hide behind vague guidelines, devs can lose months of momentum and accumulate debt while trying to appeal.

There’s nuance: payment processors and platform reputational risk pushed tighter controls on “shock” or adult-adjacent content across 2023-2025. Still, inconsistency—Humble briefly delisted then reinstated the game—makes enforcement feel arbitrary. For players that matters because it turns subjective art into a business risk for creators.

What Horses actually is — and why people defended it

Horses is a 1-2 hour first-person art-horror experience from Italy’s Santa Ragione (they’ve done compact, art-forward projects before). It’s not survival horror: no combat, slow cinematic pacing, heavy environmental storytelling and purposeful discomfort. Players praised its atmosphere and filmic approach—reviews on itch average high marks—and mod support and accessibility patches have kept the community engaged.

What gamers can do — practical steps that actually help

If you want to support devs caught in this mess, the simple, most effective moves are: buy from the dev-friendly storefronts (itch/GOG), write thoughtful reviews, and signal-boost the studio’s channels. Buying on itch gives the developer a larger cut; GOG offers DRM-free backups and easy offline play. If you care about platform policy, lobby for clearer, appealable moderation standards rather than vague bans.

• Buy direct on itch.io or GOG to maximize developer revenue.
• Leave constructive reviews and link to developer channels and mod pages.
• Back petitions or public pressure only if they demand transparent appeals, not censorship for censorship’s sake.

TL;DR — Why this is a turning point

Horses proves that alternative storefronts can save a game and its creators from immediate collapse, but it also exposes a broken discovery model and inconsistent content moderation that can derail creative projects. For gamers, the takeaway is simple: your purchases and platform choices matter. If you want the kinds of weird, challenging games that make the medium interesting, put your wallet where your values are—and demand clearer rules from the platforms that gatekeep our hobby.