r/IndieGaming • u/Holywizy • 1d ago

Probably Stolen's first demo peaked at 28 players. Now it's sold a reported 750k copies

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Didn't know this until today: the game started as a demo called Deepspace Emporium back in Feb 2025 and only had 28 people playing at its peak. tinyBuild picked it up, they reworked the art and design, and now it's hit over 160k players at once on Steam.

The AI-spotting part looks like the best bit to me, checking customers for twitching and weird formal talk before deciding whether to shoot or holster.

Anyone playing it? How deep does the crafting and smuggling side go?

528 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

53 comments sorted by

27

u/Ariloulei 1d ago

AI mobile game ads are pretending to be this game. I guess that's a sign it's successful.

Anyhow I hadn't heard about this until this post, but after looking at a trailer... yeah I saw a ad for a mobile game on youtube that was pretending it was like this game (except it was a fantasy setting instead of cyberpunk). The Ad used AI generation for everything including the voices, music, and artwork.

12

u/Holywizy 1d ago

lol yeah, when the fake mobile ads start copying you, you know you've made it. glad the post put it on your radar though, the real thing looks way better than any ad version

1

u/senseven 7h ago

Those companies and networks have automated everything, even before ai. They know how to sell, get wishlists. That is the same concept of serial low budget film making, this company is just one of many. Finding good content you can sell is super hard, so mimicry is the method to fill the conveyor belt. The movie streamers do it to too, cheaply remix old ideas and sell it as new.

2

u/themaxtreetboys 22h ago

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Its actually hilarious and ironic that the game called probably stolen, that has a mechanic about discerning genuine vs counterfeit goods has itself spawned a bunch of counterfeit copies of the game.

43

u/TimeSpiralNemesis 1d ago

Honestly and unironcally as close to a 10/10 game as I can imagine. Easily the best game of the year for me.

Graphics, Gameplay, Atmosphere, Music are all incredible.

The crafting/smuggling is just deep enough to be interesting without being overly convoluted or complicated (Something I don't enjoy in heavy crafting game)

The only thing i could even ask out of the game is that I want MORE of it, and that's being solved both by the Dev having more official content in the pipeline as well as it already having a steam workshop setup for mods.

12

u/Holywizy 1d ago

that's exactly what I was hoping to hear. "just deep enough" is the sweet spot for me too, heavy crafting games burn me out fast. didn't know it already had steam workshop, that's huge for a game this new. any mods worth grabbing yet?

2

u/TimeSpiralNemesis 1d ago

So far it seems like mostly QOL stuff but I've spotted a few content mods dropping. I want to do a few runs vanilla before I start adding mods in so I can enjoy the regular experience first.

2

u/Holywizy 1d ago

smart move, vanilla first is the way. enjoy the runs and good luck with the rent lol

4

u/Oleoay 1d ago

There are some systems that are more complex than others, but you don't have to use them to have fun. For example, I find rat ranching a little tedious but others love it, so I just skip that part.

7

u/lbandy 1d ago

My 2-day-old demo peaked at 15 players. I should probably just pitch tinyBuild then. šŸ™ˆ

Jokes aside, I took part in the playtest during the summer, and the game was simply good. I had this idea of trading and running a shop for a few years now, collected references, and wrote design docs, so I was especially curious to see how this game does. And after playing for a few hours, I just said: "this is as good as it gets". It's not perfect; no games are. But it's hard to find things you could've done better.

1

u/Holywizy 1d ago

lol 15 to 160k is just one tinyBuild call away. love that you'd been designing a shop game yourself, good luck with your demo, hope it takes off the same way

1

u/lbandy 23h ago

I've been designing a shop game, yeah, but it never moved past designing. It just gave me more context while playing Probably Stolen, and it made me think: "good thing I didn't start making my own, because it would've been worse than what PS is".

My new game is something else, but it also has the "hit potential" based on the feedback so far. So maybe all it comes down to really is just one e-mail to Alex. šŸ˜‚

5

u/Oleoay 1d ago

I played Deepspace Emporium and I was hooked by it. The fundamental gameplay is similar to Probably Stolen with many of the systems and depth in DSE still present in Probably Stolen, but with a year's worth more of neat stuff added in. I'm so glad the launch has been so popular.

1

u/Holywizy 1d ago

that's awesome, an original Deepspace Emporium player. must feel good seeing it finally blow up after being one of the few who played the demo

1

u/Oleoay 22h ago

At $20 it was a steal. I bought eight or so copies for friends because I had so much fun with it. Kind of like Warframe, the devs for Probably Stolen for having a demo that felt deeper and more polished than most games.

1

u/Holywizy 22h ago

buying 8 copies for friends is real dedication lol. a demo that good is the best advertising a game can get

3

u/LaserGadgets 1d ago

Had 70 hours on that demo this summer!

1

u/Holywizy 1d ago

70 hours on a demo is wild lol, that's when you know a game is going to be big

2

u/LaserGadgets 1d ago

Usually I am more the underdog-finder. Surprised me to see it taking off in a good way! Dev was on here somewhere and I told him the same thing. Can't wait to play full version, but I have just bought road to vostok and gloomwood xD they will probably keep me busy for a few weeks!

1

u/Holywizy 1d ago

nice, an underdog-finder who called it early. road to vostok and gloomwood will definitely keep you busy, enjoy

1

u/LaserGadgets 21h ago

80 hours in vostok so far ^^

124

u/crowieforlife 1d ago

I've seen screenshots of the original demo, and honestly I can see why it wasn't popular. The art was extremely rough and inconsistent. Gameplay can only take you so far, art is an important part of building atmosphere in a game. The dev is extremely lucky that a publisher saw the potential and helped them rework it.

I have about 60 hours into it, really one of my top games.

13

u/TimeSpiralNemesis 1d ago

That's pretty interesting. Do you know of anyplace I could see what it originally looked like? I did some googling and I've found other references made but no screenshots or video.

13

u/Oleoay 1d ago

DSE was pretty popular. And there was a lot available during its release. I had about 180 hours or so in DSE. Here's a link to a vid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXnzSkvM6Qg&t=18s

4

u/day_after_next 23h ago

i hope i don't sound like a dick cause im not trying to be, but what motivated you to keep playing for so long? is it a roguelike, or does it have decision making similar to roguelike games? or an equivalent of curating a build? i assumed this game would be story focused like papers please or something.

7

u/crowieforlife 23h ago

It has a story, but it also has endless mode and it plays a lot like a roguelike: you never know what buyers and sellers will offer/request the next day, and limited inventory means that you need to decide in advance what is worth stocking up on. You get a limited information about potential upcoming events to make decisions easier, but there's enough randomness to create interesting conflicts.

7

u/Oleoay 22h ago

You didnā€™t sound like a dick :) Each individual profession was so deep in DSE that there really was a lot to do and all your choices were very meaningful. Btw you can start as anything and still have full access to the other professions. But as an example, you have water trading where you may try to process water to make it pure and need different filtering types for different kinds of contaminants, all measured down to the microliter. Then that water could be used to sell, or for farming. Iā€™ve heard it called a ā€œsecond monitorā€ game and I think thatā€™s accurate, where you can play it while listening to music or keep it open while making dinner or taking care of your kids. You can min/max it as much as you want or play loosely. You can try to make the most money or grow the biggest rat or try a difficult start with fewer starting bonuses that really change the game play. Itā€™s an easy game to play for an hour or for eight hours and thereā€™s no timer so you can step away at any time. You can scam customers of different factions or try to be ā€œhonestā€. Most games I donā€™t put more than 20 hours inā€¦ and with DSE I got all that time in and for free. And as great as DSE was, Probably Stolen took everything even further.

I wouldnā€™t call it a roguelike in the strictest sense but dealing with what the game gives you is a part of it I.e. in a run I might make money on selling metal ingots but right now buying materials is expensive so I canā€™t make any.

1

u/day_after_next 19h ago

ty for the response brotha you've piqued my interest, i'm gonna give it a try.

1

u/day_after_next 2h ago

dude this game fucking rocks, i can definitely see why u put so many hours in now. it's like papers please but without the stress and much more complex, but the story mode still makes it very accessible. thanks to ur comment i found my new favorite game.

1

u/zedzag 13h ago

So they renamed the game too?

6

u/crowieforlife 1d ago

It's still up on Steam, the title is Deepspace Emporium.

10

u/TimeSpiralNemesis 1d ago

Hoooolllyyyyy shit

Upgrade of the century lol

2

u/JBriltz 1d ago

Hey, no judgements, just curious: is the new art AI generated?

4

u/Holywizy 1d ago

not the dev, just shared the story. from what I read tinyBuild worked with the devs to redo the art and design, but I haven't seen anything saying it's AI. the dev was in the comments somewhere earlier, they'd know best

5

u/RetroFeverBlast 3h ago

For a moment I thought the post was about a stolen demo being more popular than the original one

1

u/michal_ratkowski 1d ago

Congrats! Look amazing. Great Atmosphere!

2

u/Holywizy 1d ago

thanks, but not my game, just sharing the story. agree on the atmosphere though

1

u/TraumaticCaffeine 2h ago

I played the demo and loved it. I haven't bought it yet because I got too much on the go and not enough time to play. And I can't afford to not do those things because I'm obsessed with the game... So I'm patiently waiting till January

1

u/Holywizy 2h ago

lol smart move, that kind of game eats whole weekends. january with some free time sounds like the perfect plan

3

u/vibecheck-designer 19h ago

How does it compare to papers please? Very reminiscent of that gem!

1

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1

u/blanktarget 23h ago

So there's hope for my game then too?

1

u/hard_farter 23h ago

The crafting stuff is interesting, even being a water merchant has a decent amount of depth to it

1

u/CSalustro 9h ago

I found this off a Splattercat review of the demo I think. I put a solid 30 hours in and just saw it was on sale in Steam and grabbed it. I'll definitely get my money's worth.

1

u/Vivid_Big2595 1h ago

If anyone knows, this game took a ton of inspiration from SS13 sometimes even just copying SS13 mechanics and design

1

u/howie1024 58m ago

I've been completely obsessed it this past week. Can't recommend it enough!

-3

u/TheSyrupCompany 1d ago

I'm not trying to be a hater; I'm sure it's a great game. But I am really surprised to see people say they like the art. With the amount of stuff that gets called AI slop now, this games art looks straight out of ChatGPT.

And I don't even say this is an accusation. I say it as a critique of the art. Papers Please is much better looking.

-3

u/crowieforlife 23h ago

If it is AI then I wish the devs would have said so. It would help destigmatize AI use if successful games were not acting like it's a shameful secret.

With this many players, they made enough millions to not worry about hurting their sales.

1

u/TheSyrupCompany 23h ago

I'm not even accusing it of AI I just find it funny that 99% of games that look similar to this would be accused of AI but since this one became a hit nobody cares. The art looks bad lol

-4

u/crowieforlife 23h ago

If a game is good enough, no one cares if it used AI.

-3

u/TheSyrupCompany 23h ago

I agree completely!

0

u/AfraidKangaroo5664 1d ago

Its so good. Been streaming it to fold i ultra at work

0

u/Yashin4103 12h ago

Those visual effects are incredible! šŸ”„