Every two months approximately, an independent game breaks down randomly among the dozens of games released on Steam every day to live live support. In March, Annex I was this game: a daring drug simulator that mixes the economy of Supermarket simulator with the criminal buffoonery of GTA V. Banners and viewers seem past Annex IA low production value and found the bud of a new engaging play tension.

But games with risky contents start all the time: why Annex I Marking a high score while so many other games with sensitive content are buckled on concrete? To find out, we take a look at the success of the game during its first version and to save our theories with data from our recent T1 2025 report which was published last week (check it if you missed it!)

The increase in appendix I to a massive point audience

Annex I had a delayed accumulation of its advanced performance. During the first day Annex I Presented in 319,000 hours of gaze (a respectable number), it is not 8 days later that the game struck its peak daily watch time of 2.4m hours watched (with an overview of 243K). Impressively, the game even managed to stay above 500,000 hours a day watched Mark for almost the 30 full days – a definite sign of a game that brings the banners.

In total, the game saw two distinct waves of interest in a week apart as the word of the quality of the independent game spread throughout the community live – A very different audience model from most AAA versions, which generally increase at first, then gradually weaken (until the new content is released). Although there are many other simulation games, the players welcomed Annex IThe ability to promote the player realistically in the drug trafficking chain, from the street dealer to the distributor, an impressive gameplay loop, despite the game.

By focusing on the first week for a while, we get our first overview of what did Annex I jump. The upper streamer of Annex I By far, Caseoh_, with 745,000 hours looked at – double that of second place XQC with 316,000 hours of surveillance. They are big strikers in the world live, bringing the game to awareness of the public. However, what is more impressive is that Annex I Attracted great streamers other than those who generally try new AAA games (people like Zackrawrr and Pirasoftware). This includes the Indonesian YouTube Windah Basudara game streamer and the Argentinian Kick Streamer Streamer, also showing the world attraction of the title.

Schedule I get a cry in the 100 best banners

When we talk about “renowned streamers”, it can be a fairly ambiguous term. For our discussion here, we will see how the 100 best streamers affected Annex IPerformance – something we examined more closely in our report in the first quarter of 2025. During his first three weeks of release, Annex I was broadcast by 20 of the 100 best banners of the T1 2025, including Caedrel, Zackrawr and Kaiceat. This led to a huge 65.7% of the total hours of the game watched came the top 100 banks on the first day – a massive part for a preexisting IP game.

Compare this to the consequences as Monster Hunter Wilds And Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2We see that these games have experienced much lower contributions from the 100 best banners during the initial launch, and even a few weeks later, it was still resting in half of the cumulative hours looked at Annex I. To bring this point back to the house, consider that, within 7 days preceding its exit, Annex I was mentioned in cats in just 2.5 km from Twitch while Monster Hunter Wilds appeared in cats on 12.2K channels (5x attention). In other words, the sudden increase in demand after the release was helped by the best creators expanding the scope of Annex I.

Streamrs of the big name are always essential to the success of the independent game

In our recent game marketing article, we have examined how the viewer of the 100 best streamers relates to a total of the hours of a game. This is particularly important for independent games, which were historically based on the search for passionate defenders among the streamers of the big name to increase the profile of their titles. Let’s see how Annex I is part of this previous analysis.

As we can see previously, there is a strong correlation between the hours looked at in the 100 best banners and the total hours. This makes sense since the first metric adds to the second metric, but there is also probably a copy effect here by which small banners see larger banners covering these games and want to jump on the trend. Of the 20 games examined, only 9 were played by the 100 best banners, but these 9 games have surpassed almost all other games in the sample (we will cover them in a moment). Annex I Had almost 10m of hours looked at the 100 best banners, putting it at around 8 m before the next highest Repo, And it seemed to pay as Annex I also had the highest total hours looked at (however, of course, by a much smaller margin). It may be that, beyond a certain point, the impact of these 100 best banners is diluted, having already aroused a advanced interest in the game.

Among the 11 games not played by the 100 best streamers, however, there is still a significant variation in success. 3 of non -top 100 matches contributed with the previous group (Lost records: Bloom & Rage,, Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the mistAnd Everbuck 2), and the best game in this group (Lost records: Bloom & Rage) had the viewer 2 amplitudes superior to the lowest game of this group (Exchange of mind). It therefore seems that hitting these big streamers is certainly not a need to succeed, but phenomenal success for original IP requires their attention (for example Annex I, repo,, Blue prince).

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In a world where AAA game budgets become exorbitant, it must be frustrating for major studios to see how a low -production value game with a solid gameplay can always pierce the noise of the Steam market. Be part of Annex ISuccess has undoubtedly made its mature theme: India can go where major studios cannot (or will not) for fear of losing sponsors (With games like GTA V be notable exceptions because of their series inheritance). Future independent games could learn, exploring avenues inaccessible to major studios by approaching somewhat controversial subjects.

To find out more about recent games that have arisen and related industry trends, download the full Q1 2025 report from Stream’s Hatchet now: