How much revenue did Carto make?

$1.3M–$3.4M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Carto sell?

Q: How many copies did Carto sell?

233k to 379k copies, based on its 9k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 233k–379k; $1.3M–$3.4M after Steam's cut $2.3M–$5.3M before Steam's cut; from 9k reviews (Overwhelmingly 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 Carto and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Carto's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 4.5M–5.4M

best case 5.8M (Stray)

Games like Carto

A typical game among these

≈ 4.5M–5.4M copies

≈ $13.1M–$51.6M after Steam's cut

from ~135k 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.

No genre covers most of these similar games. The closest is Puzzle (3 of 8), so its genre is hard to place.

Of the 416 indie games that passed 1,000 reviews in 2022, 11.8% were novel genre mixes and 88.2% stuck to an established genre. Published indie market research.

Best case: Stray at ≈ 4.4M–7.2M copies, ≈ $36.6M–$98.3M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 22k reviews in their first month; the range was 4k to 69k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Puzzle (3 of 8) and Anime (2 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Cats + Cyberpunk, priced around $30.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2009 to 2022, and none of them 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 79 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
Little Nightmares 2017	Est. copies ≈ 4.0M–6.5M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $22.1M–$59.3M after Steam's cut $40.1M–$91.3M before Steam's cut	$19.99	117k reviews Very Positive	HorrorAtmospheric
Soundpad 2017	Est. copies ≈ 3.6M–5.9M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $4.9M–$13.3M after Steam's cut $9.0M–$20.5M before Steam's cut	$4.99	105k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	UtilitiesAudio Production
Helltaker 2020	Est. copies ≈ 3.2M–5.2M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue Free	Free	128k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Free to PlayCute
Stray 2022	Est. copies ≈ 4.4M–7.2M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $36.6M–$98.3M after Steam's cut $66.5M–$151.3M before Steam's cut	$29.99	179k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	CatsAdventure
Ori and the Will of the Wisps 2020	Est. copies ≈ 3.6M–5.9M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $30.0M–$80.6M after Steam's cut $54.5M–$124.0M before Steam's cut	$29.99	147k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	BeautifulMetroidvania
Poppy Playtime 2021	Est. copies ≈ 3.5M–5.7M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue Free	Free	143k reviews Very Positive	HorrorFree to Play
Mirror 2018	Est. copies ≈ 2.6M–4.1M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $1.4M–$3.8M after Steam's cut $2.5M–$5.8M before Steam's cut	$1.99	84k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Sexual ContentNudity
Plants vs. Zombies GOTY Edition 2009	Est. copies ≈ 9.9M–16.1M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $13.6M–$36.5M after Steam's cut $24.7M–$56.1M before Steam's cut	$4.99	156k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Tower DefenseZombies