“Other People Make the Money”: Suda51 Says Grasshopper Earns Almost Nothing From Its Old Games on Steam

Grasshopper Manufacture, the studio founded by cult Japanese game designer Goichi Suda (Suda51), earns very little from sales of its older games on Steam — despite the fact that a large part of its catalog is available on the platform. The developer spoke about this in a recent interview.

According to Suda, the core issue is that Grasshopper most often acted as a developer rather than a publisher. As a result, even when games continue to sell steadily, most of the revenue goes to the companies that own the publishing rights.

Grasshopper is listed as the publisher only on a handful of titles — such as the visual novel The Silver Case and the remaster of Shadows of the Damned. Meanwhile, well-known series like No More Heroes and the cult classic Killer7 generate minimal income for the studio, despite their popularity and frequent Steam sales. The remaster Lollipop Chainsaw RePop was released without Grasshopper’s involvement altogether.

The studio’s latest game, Romeo Is a Dead Man, became the first project in a long time that Grasshopper published on Steam by itself. Development was financed by its parent company NetEase, which acquired the studio in 2021, but the decision to self-publish was a deliberate one. The game received mixed reviews, but ones that are unmistakably “Suda-style” — not for everyone, yet full of personality, strong ideas, and a distinct creative voice.

Suda admitted that self-publishing turned out to be significantly more difficult than working with a traditional publisher. However, in the long run, it allows the studio to keep more money in-house. Grasshopper had to learn many processes from scratch — tasks that publishers previously handled entirely.

The story of Grasshopper Manufacture highlights the darker side of Steam’s “long tail”: cult status and storefront presence don’t guarantee stable income if the developer doesn’t control publishing rights.

What do you think — are studios like Grasshopper better off taking the risk of self-publishing today, or is surviving without publishers still too hard for teams like this?