How much revenue did Vain Riser make?

$9k–$23k after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Vain Riser sell?

Q: How many copies did Vain Riser sell?

2k to 4k copies, based on its 98 Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 2k–4k; $9k–$23k after Steam's cut $16k–$36k before Steam's cut; from 98 reviews (Mostly Positive)

Copies are estimated from the public review count, adjusted for release year, and cross-checked against SteamSpy's own estimate.

Did the prediction match what actually happened?

We hid Vain Riser and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Vain Riser's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 1.2M–4.9M

best case 10.3M (Doki Doki Literature Club!)

Games like Vain Riser

A typical game among these

≈ 1.2M–4.9M copies

≈ $6.5M–$40.8M after Steam's cut

from ~62k reviews

Only the top fifth of 2019's Steam releases earned $34k or more before Steam's cut, so plan for that or less.

All 8 of the similar games are hits.

Best case: Doki Doki Literature Club! at ≈ 7.9M–12.8M copies.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 9k reviews in their first month; the range was 2k to 14k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Dating Sim (7 of 8) and Anime (6 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Psychological Horror + Visual Novel.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2014 to 2024, and 2 of the 8 shipped in the last two years.

How these numbers were worked out

A hit here: 1,000+ reviews, roughly $150k+ before Steam's cut (a standard indie benchmark).

Copies come from each game's reviews times a sales-per-review rate that falls with release age, from about 31 for the most recent game here to about 70 for the oldest, then widened into a range; revenue rides on that estimate times price. Source: GameDiscoverCo (2020) and VG Insights (2021).

Similar games

Game	Est. copies	Est. revenue	Price	Reviews	Tags
Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! 2021	Est. copies ≈ 813k–1.3M SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $3.4M–$9.0M after Steam's cut $6.1M–$13.9M before Steam's cut	$14.99	33k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Psychological Horror Visual Novel
Senren＊Banka 2020	Est. copies ≈ 923k–1.5M SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $8.9M–$23.9M after Steam's cut $16.2M–$36.7M before Steam's cut	$34.99	37k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Visual NovelNSFW
Doki Doki Literature Club! 2017	Est. copies ≈ 7.9M–12.8M 3.7x vs typical SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue Free	Free	229k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Psychological Horror Visual Novel
The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty 2024	Est. copies ≈ 1.5M–2.4M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $4.1M–$11.0M after Steam's cut $7.4M–$16.9M before Steam's cut	$9.99	60k reviews Very Positive	Visual NovelHistorical
LoveChoice 2021	Est. copies ≈ 910k–1.5M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $498k–$1.3M after Steam's cut $906k–$2.1M before Steam's cut	$1.99	37k reviews Very Positive	RomanceDating Sim
Persona 5 Royal 2022	Est. copies ≈ 3.5M–5.7M 2.3x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $57.7M–$155.1M after Steam's cut $104.9M–$238.5M before Steam's cut	$59.99	141k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	JRPG Story Rich
Persona 3 Reload 2024	Est. copies ≈ 1.6M–2.6M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $26.5M–$71.2M after Steam's cut $48.2M–$109.6M before Steam's cut	$59.99	65k reviews Very Positive	JRPGRPG
Everlasting Summer 2014	Est. copies ≈ 4.4M–7.1M SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue Free	Free	78k reviews Very Positive	Visual Novel Story Rich