Dropleaf has a dual-goal: Making it easier to find indie games and lift diversity

Dropleaf is a new subscription platform that wants to help people discover more indie PC games. The service will offer a hand-picked collection of games with an added focus on reaching out to more diverse game creators. It’s launching out of the summer batch of Y Combinator startups, and it’ll start at $5 per month for access to a little over 40 games with plans to add 10 to 20 new games per month.

Discoverability is still a key issue for indie studios, who struggle to get their games in front of players. Small teams often can’t afford to finance extensive marketing campaigns, which might help audiences find their work. Most devs post their titles to the Steam digital gaming platform, which dominates the online space and makes up 50 percent to 70 percent of all PC game downloads. For $100, anyone meeting certain requirements can post a game through Steam Direct, the open submissions portal that replaced Steam Greenlight, a now-defunct feature that let the community vote on game releases. Steam can be a crowded space; last month, 457 games debuted on its store, according to Steam Spy. In 2016, 4,731 games came to Steam.