--- title: How Steam changes and a China strategy helped... description: TinyBuild's The King is Watching, developed by Serbian studio Hypnohead, surpassed 500,000 sales after launching in July 2025. The game originated from a Ludum... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-steam-changes-and-a-china-strategy-helped-tinybuild-s-the-king-is-watching-hit-500k-sales-ilnqcqfrm twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How Steam changes and a China strategy helped TinyBuild's The King is Watching hit 500k sales | daily.dev og:description: TinyBuild's The King is Watching, developed by Serbian studio Hypnohead, surpassed 500,000 sales after launching in July 2025. The game originated from a Ludum... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-steam-changes-and-a-china-strategy-helped-tinybuild-s-the-king-is-watching-hit-500k-sales-ilnqcqfrm og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/iLnqcqfrm.png og:image:alt: How Steam changes and a China strategy helped TinyBuild's The King is Watching hit 500k sales og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How Steam changes and a China strategy helped TinyBuild's The King is Watching hit 500k sales **[GamesIndustry.biz](https://daily.dev/sources/gamesindustry)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary TinyBuild's The King is Watching, developed by Serbian studio Hypnohead, surpassed 500,000 sales after launching in July 2025. The game originated from a Ludum Dare 54 jam entry and underwent a significant pivot to add roguelite mechanics after early playtesting showed low session times. TinyBuild CEO Alex Nichiporchik credits Steam's improved tag-based recommendation system for helping the game find its niche audience, noting that wish lists targeted a very specific player base that Valve's algorithm could surface effectively. A deliberate China strategy—including heavy localization investment and social media presence—drove over 30% of total sales from that region. Demo releases on Itch.io and Opera GX accumulated over one million downloads. Nichiporchik sees long-term franchise potential in the IP, drawing parallels to SpeedRunners, which is now getting a sequel 14 years after its original release. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [tinyBuild CEO Explains Success of Cozy Room Restoration Game Hozy](https://daily.dev/posts/tinybuild-ceo-explains-success-of-cozy-room-restoration-game-hozy-8dmohn5u0) · 80 LEVEL · 9 upvotes · 2 comments - [What devs need to succeed in the Chinese games market](https://daily.dev/posts/what-devs-need-to-succeed-in-the-chinese-games-market-t81onpcjx) · GamesIndustry.biz · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#gaming](https://daily.dev/tags/gaming), [#steam](https://daily.dev/tags/steam) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-steam-changes-and-a-china-strategy-helped-tinybuild-s-the-king-is-watching-hit-500k-sales-ilnqcqfrm) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How Steam changes and a China strategy helped TinyBuild's The King is Watching hit 500k sales","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-steam-changes-and-a-china-strategy-helped-tinybuild-s-the-king-is-watching-hit-500k-sales-ilnqcqfrm","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-steam-changes-and-a-china-strategy-helped-tinybuild-s-the-king-is-watching-hit-500k-sales-ilnqcqfrm"},"datePublished":"2026-03-06T11:56:53.774Z","dateModified":"2026-03-06T11:59:35.303Z","description":"TinyBuild's The King is Watching, developed by Serbian studio Hypnohead, surpassed 500,000 sales after launching in July 2025. 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