{"id":65283,"date":"2026-04-15T12:45:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T03:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=65283"},"modified":"2026-04-15T12:45:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T03:45:45","slug":"indie-publisher-says-offering-a-paid-game-for-free-for-4-days-brought-in-250000-in-revenue-on-steam-the-key-is-dlc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/indie-publisher-says-offering-a-paid-game-for-free-for-4-days-brought-in-250000-in-revenue-on-steam-the-key-is-dlc\/","title":{"rendered":"Indie publisher says offering a paid game for free\u00a0for\u00a04\u00a0days\u00a0brought in $250,000\u00a0in revenue\u00a0on Steam. The key is DLC\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In a&nbsp;limited-time&nbsp;promotion that ran from April 10 to 14, publisher&nbsp;tinyBuild&nbsp;made its medieval graveyard management&nbsp;sim&nbsp;<strong>Graveyard Keeper,<\/strong>&nbsp;whose standard price is $19.99,&nbsp;available for free. During the four-day period, the game generated&nbsp;roughly $250 thousand&nbsp;USD&nbsp;in revenue&nbsp;on Steam alone,&nbsp;according&nbsp;to the company\u2019s CEO&nbsp;Alex&nbsp;Nichiporchik.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Graveyard Keeper&nbsp;was originally&nbsp;released for PC in 2018 and later&nbsp;ported&nbsp;to consoles and mobile platforms.&nbsp;In the recent promotion,&nbsp;the&nbsp;title\u2019s&nbsp;PC (Steam), PS4, and Xbox One versions were offered&nbsp;entirely for free, likely as a way to generate buzz for the upcoming sequel, Graveyard Keeper 2, which was announced in conjunction with the free campaign.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Many are asking if it\u2019s worth it, to give away a game like this for free<br><br>Outside of the currently 400k wishlists for the sequel, we\u2019ve also<br><br>Made almost 250k usd from selling DLCs for the original. This is just on Steam. Haven\u2019t gotten the console numbers yet<br><br>So it makes sense\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/37DHqMAgyY\">https:\/\/t.co\/37DHqMAgyY<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Alex Nichiporchik (@aNichiporchik) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/aNichiporchik\/status\/2043801357791134101?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 13, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Following the start of the promotion, Graveyard Keeper&#8217;s Steam version quickly peaked at 46,000 concurrent players,&nbsp;which is&nbsp;more than double the&nbsp;title\u2019s&nbsp;previous&nbsp;record (<a href=\"https:\/\/steamdb.info\/app\/599140\/charts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">SteamDB<\/a>). Additionally, according to&nbsp;tinyBuild\u2019s&nbsp;Nichiporchik,&nbsp;the number of&nbsp;Wishlists&nbsp;for the sequel also surged thanks to the giveaway, reaching 450,000 as of April 14.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nichiporchik&nbsp;also revealed that Graveyard Keepers generated approximately $250,000 in revenue from DLC sales during the free promotion period.&nbsp;Several&nbsp;DLC&nbsp;packs have been released for the game,&nbsp;offering&nbsp;expanded&nbsp;gameplay and content, and&nbsp;it appears&nbsp;the influx&nbsp;on&nbsp;new&nbsp;players&nbsp;led to a surge in purchases.&nbsp;Additionally, to coincide with the start of base&nbsp;game\u2019s&nbsp;giveaway,&nbsp;all DLC was discounted at 80% off,&nbsp;which&nbsp;undoubtedly&nbsp;further&nbsp;incentivized players&nbsp;to buy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1536\" height=\"864\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260414-437307-001-1536x864-1.jpeg\" alt=\"Graveyard Keeper\" class=\"wp-image-65286\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260414-437307-001-1536x864-1.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260414-437307-001-1536x864-1-380x214.jpeg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260414-437307-001-1536x864-1-768x432.jpeg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It seems&nbsp;tinyBuild\u2019s&nbsp;CEO shared these figures following numerous inquiries about whether it&#8217;s really worth it to offer a game for free. As he explains (and as Graveyard Keeper\u2019s example&nbsp;demonstrates), the strategy is effective when the game has a lot of DLC.&nbsp;It\u2019s&nbsp;also worth noting that the $250,000 figure shared by&nbsp;Nichiporchik&nbsp;represents&nbsp;revenue from the Steam version alone, so&nbsp;the actual total is&nbsp;likely higher&nbsp;when accounting for console versions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Graveyard Keeper is available for PC (<a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/599140\/Graveyard_Keeper\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Steam<\/a>\/<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gog.com\/en\/game\/graveyard_keeper\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">GOG<\/a>),&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendo.com\/us\/store\/products\/graveyard-keeper-switch\/?srsltid=AfmBOorj9qnfV8YXfapjOfc5nbIVlMFgB9SpqC2AeXDlHIc2A3K7O6nY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nintendo Switch<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/store.playstation.com\/en-us\/product\/UP0097-CUSA10727_00-GRAVEYARDKEEPER0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">PS4<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.xbox.com\/en-US\/games\/store\/graveyard-keeper\/c11gzgmkrtcv\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Xbox&nbsp;One<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/graveyard-keeper\/id1461238719\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">iOS<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.tinybuild.graveyardkeeper\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Android<\/a>, with the base game and DLC currently on sale on select platforms.&nbsp;A sequel titled Graveyard Keeper 2 is in the works.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The CEO of indie game publisher tinyBuild has shared the impressive results of a four-day free givaway campaign for Graveyard Keeper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":65285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,62,3],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-65283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-development","category-indie-games","category-news","tag-global-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Indie publisher says offering a paid game for free\u00a0for\u00a04\u00a0days\u00a0brought in $250,000\u00a0in revenue\u00a0on Steam. The key is DLC\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The CEO of indie game publisher tinyBuild has shared the impressive results of a four-day free givaway campaign for Graveyard Keeper.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/indie-publisher-says-offering-a-paid-game-for-free-for-4-days-brought-in-250000-in-revenue-on-steam-the-key-is-dlc\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Indie publisher says offering a paid game for free\u00a0for\u00a04\u00a0days\u00a0brought in $250,000\u00a0in revenue\u00a0on Steam. 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