What are the chances of making good money by releasing a game on Steam? Well, if these new numbers are anything to go by, they are not very high. A study led by We Love It, Totally Human Media, and VaporLens shows that a small number of Steam games make huge amounts of money, while the rest make very little. According to the study, just 1% of Steam games account for around 84.5% of the platform’s estimated revenue.
The study looked at 99,206 games sold on Steam, and the numbers show a big gap between the games that make the most money and the rest. A small number of games make millions, while most developers make very little from their games. The most successful 1% of games can make between $15 million and several billion dollars per game. But for most games, things are very different. Half of all paid games on Steam have made less than $4,000 in total, which clearly shows how hard it can be to make money from a game on Steam.
As mentioned, the research was carried out by data analysis companies to study the games, estimate how much money they made, and group the results by genre. Since Valve does not share revenue figures for Steam games, the numbers are estimates based on game reviews and a sales multiplier. The study also only includes paid games. This means free games such as Counter-Strike are not included, along with “non-game software, adult-only titles and unreleased entries.”
The 99,206 games were selected from a larger list of 136,281 titles. The study used a multiplier of 35, meaning that each Steam review was counted as around 35 copies sold at the game’s current price. That number can change from game to game and the estimates may be on the low side, but the wider picture is still clear. The report reads (via GamesRadar), “Half of all paid games on Steam have earned less than an estimated $3,622 in their entire lifetime. A game at the 90th percentile has earned about $236,184, and the 99th percentile starts at $15,872,031.”
On the other hand, games that have made around $100 million or more include Half-Life 2, Vampire Survivors, Terraria, Among Us, Stardew Valley, Valheim, Schedule 1, Palworld and Baldur’s Gate 3. There are also thousands of games that appear to have made almost nothing. Around 8,024 premium games included in the study had no reviews at all.
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