Simon Carless

Simon Carless specialises in how players find, buy and enjoy premium PC and console video games, using data-led analysis and long industry experience to explain why some titles cut through and others do not. He is the founder of GameDiscoverCo and runs The GameDiscoverCo newsletter, a regular publication on game discovery and commercial performance followed by more than forty-five thousand subscribers. His coverage centres on Steam and other major platforms, combining quantifiable signals – wishlists, concurrents, sales estimates – with case studies of individual games, showcases and long-term market trends.

Game discovery lessons from 30 years in the biz

Carless presents himself first and foremost as a “how people find your game” specialist, framing game discovery as the core problem he studies rather than simply tracking news from the games industry. In The GameDiscoverCo newsletter he describes the publication as a regular look at how people discover and buy video games in the 2020s, with overviews, analysis and notable links around premium PC and console discovery, games and platforms.

His own background is woven into this focus: he writes explicitly about “game discovery lessons from 30 years (!) in the biz,” using that anniversary piece to distil long-term observations into practical guidance for developers and publishers.

Outside the newsletter, his author bio at Game Developer identifies him as the founder of the GameDiscoverCo agency and creator of the GameDiscoverCo discoverability newsletter, consulting with PC and console publishers and developers on these same issues. He also serves on the board of a video game history organisation, reinforcing his position as a long-term observer of how the medium and its markets evolve.

That perspective shapes his voice: Carless writes as a working analyst rather than a traditional reporter, foregrounding questions like sustainability for the “average indie dev” and what game performance reveals about changing audience behaviour.

He repeatedly frames GameDiscoverCo as an agency and data service built around one issue – how players find, buy and enjoy premium PC or console games – and the newsletter as the public-facing side of that work. For a source, this means his coverage is less about announcing games and more about extracting discovery lessons from them, informed by decades of direct involvement with development, events and curation in the indie space.

Does your Steam demo CCU ‘predict’ your game’s success?

Carless’s recent work leans heavily on quantifiable platform signals, especially on Steam, and he often structures articles around specific metrics and what they do or do not tell developers. Headlines such as “Does your Steam demo CCU ‘predict’ your game’s success?

We’ve got data.

Unsurprisingly.” set up a clear promise: he will interrogate common industry heuristics with actual data, then explain how to use or discard them in planning. In his Plus and Pro newsletters he goes further, offering “Steam sales estimates” and “exclusive platform sales & other analysis” that turn store performance into actionable benchmarks for individual titles and genres. Pieces like “Plus: YOU get a Steam sales estimate, YOU get…” and “Plus: BattleBit Remastered – a 254-player indie shooter win?” focus on specific games, breaking down launches and sales curves to show how different strategies, genres and multiplayer hooks translate into real numbers.

Across these articles, Carless moves between high-level trends and close reads of performance, often linking Steam debut analysis, wishlists and concurrent user data to broader discovery patterns.

He uses these metrics to understand not just whether a game sold, but how players encountered it: through demos, Next Fest visibility, genre expectations or event showcases. The result is coverage that treats sales figures, CCU charts and store tags as tools for understanding audience behaviour, rather than as isolated datapoints, and that consistently anchors opinion in observed store and platform data.

How have the genres of hit PC games changed since 2021?

Carless regularly zooms out from individual titles to examine structural shifts in the PC and console marketplace, with a particular interest in genre trends and what they imply for discovery. In “How have the genres of hit PC games changed since 2021?

We got data!” he analyses the changing composition of successful games by genre, using that lens to show where audience attention is moving and which categories have become more or less crowded. Articles such as “Will Big Walk’s 1m+ sales usher in a ‘co-op only’ game era?” and “Are Steam players of particular genres less accepting of AI?” blend genre framing with behavioural questions, asking how players respond to new mechanics, co‑op structures or AI use depending on the type of game they are engaging with.

He supplements this with recurring roundups like “August 2026’s top new PC & console games, revealed...” and “August 2026’s top new PC & console games, revealed...” that catalogue recent launches while highlighting the genres and formats currently finding traction on Steam and other platforms.

Event and showcase coverage also feeds into his genre and trend analysis. Carless writes pieces such as “What are the top new games of Gamescom 2026? We look at GDCo Pro’s wishlist leaderboards.” and covers seasonal happenings like Summer Game Fest by asking which games and showcases actually move the numbers for discovery. He uses wishlist leaderboards and other signals from GDCo Pro to identify standout titles from these events, turning what might be a simple recap into a ranked view of which projects have broken through to players. Taken together, his work positions genres, events and platform features as parts of a single ecosystem that determines whether a game is discoverable at all.

Putting your game in a showcase? 5 key Qs to ask...

Alongside data, Carless spends considerable time on practical decision-making for studios, writing in a direct advisory style that mirrors his consulting work. In “Putting your game in a showcase? 5 key Qs to ask...

We have opinions on that.” he focuses on whether and how to use digital and physical showcases, walking through strategic questions developers should answer before committing their games to an event.

Similar pieces look at sustainability for indie developers – “Is the game biz sustainable for the average indie dev? Two ways to approach the question.” – and the dynamics of post‑1.0 success in articles like “When 1.0 goes nice: Yet Another Zombie Survivors edition,” using individual games to illustrate broader choices about launch timing, updates and positioning.

The GameDiscoverCo newsletter itself is structured to support this advisory approach. The about page explains that the basic version offers a free high‑quality newsletter every week, featuring overviews, analysis and notable links around discovery, while paid tiers add deeper data and sales analysis. A companion audio series hosts “conversations with smart people in the video game industry on how games get discovered and played,” extending his focus on discovery into interviews and discussions.

Across formats, Carless keeps the emphasis on helping PC and console developers understand how the market now works, and how specific choices about genre, events, demos and pricing affect whether their games are found at all.