Mad Television Tycoon sits at number four on Steam’s Top Sellers chart. It has 231 concurrent players and a 46% positive rating from 13 reviews. Something doesn’t add up.

Released April 9 by developer Eggcode, the Early Access simulation game tasks players with running a TV station — scheduling programs, selling ads, beating rival networks. The premise is straightforward. The chart position is what’s strange.

Steam’s Top Sellers list ranks by revenue, not units. At $18.89 with a 10% launch discount off a $20.99 base price, Mad Television Tycoon carries a mid-tier price tag. In a quiet release window, that’s enough. A few hundred purchases at nineteen dollars generate more revenue than thousands of copies at two dollars — which is how a game with fewer concurrent players than a suburban bowling alley outearns most of the catalogue.

The reviews tell a familiar Early Access story. Players call it “very realistic” and praise the concept. Others flag balance problems — one noted difficulty making money on easy mode — and general roughness. The split is nearly even: six positive, seven negative. “Definitely needs some work,” wrote one player with 42 minutes of playtime. “Could be better.”

This isn’t a scandal. It’s arithmetic. Simulation fans are a reliable market — they buy early, they pay mid-range prices, and there aren’t many new TV management games competing for their wallets. Eggcode’s title dominated a narrow niche during a slow week, and Steam’s revenue algorithm rewarded it accordingly.

The chart position won’t last. Early Access launches spike and settle. But for a moment, a game most Steam users have never heard of outsold nearly everything on the platform — not because it’s exceptional, but because a small number of people paid a moderate amount of money at exactly the right time.

Sources