Sometimes, a situation that just keeps getting worse blows right past depressing and straight into ludicrous. Such appears to be the case for Planet Centauri, the multiplayer exploration game that just can’t seem to catch a break.
Planet Centauri is a Terraria-meets-Pokémon game that came out of early access in December 2024. After spending about a decade in development, the duo behind the title had high hopes. Planet Centauri had secured 138,000 wishlists, which theoretically meant that the same number of people would be notified via email that a game of interest reached a new milestone. At least some of those people would also be pinged in the client itself, depending on what their notification settings on Steam were. Realistically, there’s no telling how many people a wishlist might actually convert into actual sales. Coming out of early access, it’s a metric that has to be evaluated with a sense of pragmatism and realism. Still, the studio was shocked by the outcome. Planet Centauri, despite optimistic user reviews and hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube, was practically dead on arrival.
At the time, the French creatives behind the game chalked it up to bad luck. Game development is a tough business. Every day, new games are fighting tooth and nail for visibility. Deserving games fall short of the spotlight all the time. There was some anger and doubt that needed to be expelled, but eventually the studio moved on. Then, a year later, the folks behind Planet Centauri received an email from Valve that changed their understanding of what actually happened.
Turns out, the system did not do what it was supposed to. Wishlist savers did not get notified, which ultimately made it impossible for the game to reach high-visibility tabs like Popular New Releases. It was a freak accident that has only ever affected a handful of other games. As a mea culpa, Valve offered Planet Centauri another chance at the spotlight. What if Planet Centauri got a daily deal on Steam, where it is highlighted by the storefront in a sale? Not only would all the wishlist holders get pinged, the game would also be promoted on places like the front page and separate windows highlighting deals.
There would be no guarantees, and plenty of possible pitfalls. Games that look and play like Planet Centauri were in vogue a few years ago, but now the new hotness are genres like extraction shooters and battle royales. The lack of interest caused the developers to scale back development earlier than they originally intended, which left the promising game with mixed reviews. Users might overlook the game, even if they might be interested, through sheer chance. I don’t know about you, but when I boot up Steam, half the time I ignore the pop-ups the platform shows me that aren’t the main storefront. I don’t look at in-store tabs most of the time, unless I’m looking for something specific.
Despite some initial hesitation, the developers took Valve up on its offer. A little over a month ago, the studio picked one of the dates offered by Valve. Choices were limited and decided well in advance. The studio picked Nov. 12. Why not?
Guess what else happened on that fateful day? Valve announced a bunch of new hardware: Steam Machine, a new controller, and a VR headset. It was an explosive occasion. Valve doesn’t announce new things very often, and this selection of products has generated a lot of positive buzz. Depending on the pricing and marketing of Steam Machine, the PC-console hybrid could put Xbox’s hardware division out of business. Heck, Steam Machine could very well shake up the gaming industry as a whole.
To mark the occasion, Valve changed the entire Steam storefront. The only thing visible above the fold, without needing to scroll, was information about its upcoming hardware. If there was a sale on that day, most people probably didn’t realize it — they were too busy salivating over the Steam Machine’s impressive specs. The chances of anyone discovering a small indie game, even if it was on sale, were slim. Emails were sent out, sure. But prospective customers would also be bombarded with news and thinkpieces about Valve and Steam Machine.
Without meaning to, Valve had once again ruined Planet Centauri’s second chance at visibility. Laurent Lechat, one of the developers who worked on Planet Centauri, considers the whole thing unlucky.
“The day was chosen more or less randomly on our end,” Lechat told Polygon over email. Planet Centauri‘s developers are aware that Valve couldn’t just give away plans of this magnitude to just anyone. The announcement wasn’t made in malice. Valve didn’t really have a reason to consider a random indie game and how its next generation of hardware might impact it. And who knows? Things might not have turned out very differently even if Valve didn’t announce anything that day.
“It’s just bad luck and we must accept it,” Lechat says. Plus, the Daily Deal was still beneficial. The game sold a little more than 5,000 copies on that day. That’s fewer sales than what the game garnered when news broke about the unfortunate wishlist glitch, and less than the developers had hoped for. But at a studio where money is tight, thousands of sales are still a blessing.
Lechat says that “what seems like a small amount 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.” That game will be a 2D roguelike, and it’s well underway. Planet Centauri might be in the rearview, but the studio still gained valuable lessons from the experience. They’re hoping the next release will land differently. This time, no early access. A demo will be released as soon as feasibly possible. Quality over quantity.
They’re not ruling out the possibility of returning to Planet Centauri in earnest. If the next game is successful enough, they’re hoping to patch the space exploration game more regularly. They still want to improve Planet Centauri no matter what, but the success of their next game will determine how and when that actually happens. All in all, the developers are taking the latest turn of events with stride. What else is there to do but move forward and hope for the best?
“But I must admit,” Lechat says, “that over the years, I really get the feeling that Planet Centauri is cursed.”
