Steam has already released more games in 2014 than in all of 2013

Not even halfway into the year, more games have been released on Steam in 2014 than in all of 2013, according to an analysis by Gamasutra.

February, March and April all saw more than 100 games released in each month, easily dwarfing the monthly totals from 2013 and 2012. The glut places additional pressure on independent games developers to market their games and rise out of a very crowded marketplace.

Steam Greenlight, which launched in the summer of 2012, and Early Access, which opened in March 2013, are a source of many releases. However, Valve's gatekeeping has come in for criticism in light of the launches of incomplete or broken titles like The War Z in 2012, or Earth: Year 2066 this year. Both titles were removed from Steam after numerous complaints from users.

Valve has said it intends to get rid of Greenlight, which launched 100 games on its one-year anniversary in August, and convert Steam into an open-publishing platform.