The Game Census
Gratuitous Space Battles cover art

Gratuitous Space Battles

Positech Games · 2009-11-16

Steam

IndieSimulationStrategy

Modes: Single player, Multiplayer

Releases: Nov 16, 2009 (PC (Microsoft Windows)), Nov 16, 2009 (Mac), Nov 16, 2009 (Linux)

The first ever auto-battler game, from way back in 2009Who needs backstory? Who needs resource-gathering? Diplomacy is so last year. Gratuitous Space Battles cuts right to the chase of sci-fi strategy games, and deals with large, completely unjustified space battles between huge opposing space fleets.

0
playing now
70%
positive of 890 reviews
Mixed
steam rating
200,000–500,000
owners (SteamSpy est.)
65/100
critic score (2 outlets, IGDB)
92/100
IGDB user rating (11 ratings)
bronze
deck/linux tier (ProtonDB)
$14.99
steam price (US)

0 players in-game as of 2026-08-30 04:00 UTC (census sample)

Gratuitous Space Battles is a video game developed by the UK-based company Positech Games. It was released on November 17, 2009. On one level the title is a space warfare simulation consisting of a number of engagements between two opposing fleets of ships. While sometimes assumed to be a real-time strategy (RTS) game based on screenshots, actual gameplay focuses on the setup prior to the battle, making it play more like a tower defense game.

Health check

Insufficient data
  • · Not enough review history collected yet to judge health.
  • · Top 27% of 18,161 Indie games in the census by review count.
Estimated sales: 36k–71k copies

Review-multiple estimate from 890 total reviews — how this is computed.

All-time low: $1.49 at Steam (2022-11-22) · bundled 3×via IsThereAnyDeal

12-month high $14.99 · on sale 4 of 8 observed days (census price snapshots)

Players online

302026-08-06 22:00 — 0 players2026-08-07 06:00 — 0 players2026-08-07 14:00 — 0 players2026-08-07 22:00 — 0 players2026-08-08 06:00 — 0 players2026-08-08 14:00 — 1 players2026-08-08 23:00 — 1 players2026-08-09 07:00 — 0 players2026-08-09 15:00 — 0 players2026-08-09 23:00 — 0 players2026-08-10 07:00 — 0 players2026-08-10 15:00 — 0 players2026-08-10 23:00 — 0 players2026-08-11 07:00 — 0 players2026-08-11 15:00 — 1 players2026-08-12 23:00 — 0 players2026-08-14 06:00 — 0 players2026-08-15 14:00 — 2 players2026-08-16 22:00 — 2 players2026-08-18 05:00 — 1 players2026-08-19 13:00 — 1 players2026-08-20 20:00 — 0 players2026-08-22 04:00 — 1 players2026-08-23 11:00 — 2 players2026-08-24 19:00 — 2 players2026-08-26 03:00 — 1 players2026-08-27 11:00 — 0 players2026-08-28 19:00 — 2 players2026-08-30 04:00 — 0 players
Concurrent players, hourly average, last 30 days (census samples).

Price history

$19.99$1.492015-01-012026-07-092015-01-01 — best price $3.742015-08-03 — best price $9.492015-11-25 — best price $11.242016-01-04 — best price $14.992016-06-23 — best price $4.992016-08-02 — best price $7.492016-11-29 — best price $14.992017-06-22 — best price $7.492017-11-01 — best price $14.992017-12-21 — best price $2.992018-02-19 — best price $14.992018-10-29 — best price $7.492018-11-27 — best price $14.992019-02-04 — best price $7.492019-07-09 — best price $14.992019-08-12 — best price $3.742019-11-01 — best price $14.992019-11-26 — best price $5.092020-01-02 — best price $14.992020-06-25 — best price $5.092020-11-02 — best price $14.992020-12-22 — best price $7.492021-02-15 — best price $14.992021-08-30 — best price $5.092021-12-01 — best price $14.992022-01-25 — best price $11.962022-02-03 — best price $14.992022-06-23 — best price $3.742022-08-28 — best price $14.992022-12-22 — best price $1.492023-03-23 — best price $14.992023-11-21 — best price $3.742024-01-04 — best price $14.992024-06-27 — best price $7.492024-12-04 — best price $14.992025-03-13 — best price $5.092025-07-10 — best price $14.992025-12-18 — best price $4.492026-03-26 — best price $14.992026-07-09 — best price $14.99
Lowest recorded price across tracked stores, per day (census snapshots).

Attention

2202026-05-29 — 22 pageviews2026-06-01 — 3 pageviews2026-06-04 — 4 pageviews2026-06-07 — 3 pageviews2026-06-10 — 4 pageviews2026-06-13 — 6 pageviews2026-06-16 — 4 pageviews2026-06-19 — 5 pageviews2026-06-22 — 1 pageviews2026-06-25 — 19 pageviews2026-06-28 — 3 pageviews2026-07-01 — 7 pageviews2026-07-04 — 4 pageviews2026-07-07 — 3 pageviews2026-07-10 — 9 pageviews2026-07-13 — 5 pageviews2026-07-16 — 6 pageviews2026-07-19 — 8 pageviews2026-07-22 — 2 pageviews2026-07-25 — 5 pageviews2026-07-28 — 1 pageviews2026-07-31 — 6 pageviews2026-08-03 — 3 pageviews2026-08-06 — 21 pageviews2026-08-09 — 9 pageviews2026-08-12 — 2 pageviews2026-08-15 — 12 pageviews2026-08-18 — 1 pageviews2026-08-21 — 6 pageviews2026-08-24 — 6 pageviews2026-08-26 — 6 pageviews
Daily Wikipedia pageviews (attention proxy, census-recorded).

Details

WindowsmacOSLinuxSingle-playerSteam Trading CardsFamily Sharing6 DLC

1 supported languages: English

Player tags

2DRTSIndieSpaceActionSci-fiSandboxBuildingModdableStrategy

Census log

Computed from census-recorded observations only — dates are observation dates.

Players also track

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Similarity via IGDB.

Official site ↗