Internet cries as Steam dev realizes game he spent years on made money

Tangy TD was ignored by major YouTubers, only to blow up on social media and make bank on Steam

Game launches are always nail-biting affairs for developers. Maybe fans find critical bugs that make the overall experience unplayable. Maybe the game doesn't review well, or starts making headlines for the wrong reasons. But perhaps the worst possible scenario is finding out that nobody cares about your game at all.

Earlier this month, game developer Cakez launched a game on Steam called Tangy TD, a tower defense game where you play as a witch who has to stop an onslaught of monsters. Nerves around letting Tangy TD into the wild were high. For one thing, Cakez had already spent four years working on his bright, sprite-art roguelike. When he began the project, it was just him. Over the next few years, Cakez got married and had a child — which meant the stakes around Tangy TD grew higher.

For indie developers releasing on Steam, the outlook can feel grim. Around half of the games that release on the platform never make a dime. Some don't manage to recoup the $100 fee to list a game on Steam. Fewer than 10 percent of Steam games manage to make six figures. In 2025 alone, nearly 20,000 new games dropped on Steam. Only around 600 of those managed get 1,000 or more reviews on Valve's platform.

The likelihood of success was slim, and the road to release was rough. Cakez learned programming from scratch. He spent the first year making small games to get more comfortable with development, and not all of them panned out. "The only solution that I saw was to start over again," Cakez said in a YouTube video from 2020, describing a project that went sideways. "I was very arrogant to think I could start and finish a project. It didn't cross my mind that I could fail."

Cakez kept at it. He streamed his development process on Twitch, and uploaded videos on YouTube as well. He would spend 50 hours on a single video just to make a single dollar, Cakez claims. Two years later, bad luck struck once again as Cakez' computer broke down. Then, after fixing that, his PC's graphics card also gave out. At this point, Cakez says he didn't have much money to begin with. But fortunately, Cakez had amassed a small community while developing Tangy TD — and they sent him PC parts and cash to keep him going.

Four years later, on March 9, 2026, Tangy TD was released on Steam. A day after launch, Cakez recorded himself on Twitch. As his audience popped off in the chat, Cakez hesitantly clicked through Steam to check out his stats. That's when he saw the number: Tangy TD had made $31,942 in 30 hours. After Valve's cut, that came out to just under $26,000 in profit. He couldn't believe it. That reaction, which saw Cakez and his wife screaming in joy, immediately went viral on the internet for its wholesomeness. But for Cakez, this was just the beginning.

That clip helped catapult TangyTD to the masses. Not long after his initial stream, Cakez checked his Steam page once more only to discover he had now grossed $245,123. The number was so startling, Cakez immediately broke into tears. In the clip below, you can hear his toddler cooing in the background as Cakez' wife squeals. Cakez spends minutes completely speechless.

That was a few days ago, so by the time you read this, Cakez has probably sold more copies of his game. Tangy TD currently has a "very positive" rating on Steam, and many of the reviews note that they purchased the game specifically to support Cakez.

"One of the biggest reasons the game is where it is right now is my wife," Cakez says in the full stream where he calls his virality pure luck. He wasn't expecting the reaction he got, especially since he allegedly sent his game to a number of YouTubers who ignored him. Now, Tangy TD has become YouTube reaction fodder for many major personalities.

"I was struggling," Cakez says. The solo developer says that, despite the time it took, he still doesn't feel like he fully deserves the attention he's getting. But he's grateful all the same.

Once he composed himself on that emotional stream, it was back to business. "The first thing I'm gonna do now, is go to the leaderboards, and delete this fucking cheater," Cakez screams. "You think you can cheat in my game?"