Hooded Horse Celebrates Impressive Sales Milestone

Strategy game publisher Hooded Horse has been gaining momentum lately with successful titles like Manor Lords and 9 Kings. On the horizon, we have even more exciting games, notably Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era. Recently, CEO Tim Bender shared some compelling insights about the company’s performance in a LinkedIn post, revealing that they’ve “sold over 4.5 million copies across all stores” in just the past year. What’s even more impressive? Their games have been added to Steam Wishlists more than 8.5 million times. “I can’t express how lucky we feel to serve as publisher for so many amazing developers,” he noted.

What’s particularly striking about these figures is that they mirror last year’s sales: “Same copies sold, just this time it was 8.5 million wishlists instead of 9.5 million.” The key difference is that, for 2025, their sales weren’t just defined by a single blockbuster hit. “Last year, our numbers were heavily driven by Manor Lords—it represented about 60% of our copies sold and about 40% of our wishlist additions,” Bender explained. “This year, no one game accounts for more than 18% of our copies sold or more than 12% of our wishlist additions… So last year we were the ‘Manor Lords publisher’, this year I think we’re something more.”

Bender went on to emphasize the role of a publisher in the gaming ecosystem. “I firmly believe a publisher shows their value in consistent performance across games. Publishers exist to serve developers, to provide as much risk spreading and general uplift as is possible, and they should be judged on how well they are providing their service by median performance, not the outlier hits,” he added.