How much revenue did Understand make?

$23k–$62k after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Understand sell?

Q: How many copies did Understand sell?

21k to 34k copies, based on its 848 Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 21k–34k; $23k–$62k after Steam's cut $42k–$95k before Steam's cut; from 848 reviews (Very 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 Understand and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Understand's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 958k–1.9M

best case 6.0M (XCOM® 2)

Games like Understand

A typical game among these

≈ 958k–1.9M copies

≈ $5.4M–$22.4M after Steam's cut

from ~35k 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: XCOM® 2 at ≈ 4.6M–7.4M copies, ≈ $25.1M–$67.5M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 23k reviews in their first month; the range was 6k to 73k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Puzzle (3 of 8) and Simulation (3 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Isometric + Turn-Based Combat, priced around $20.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2015 to 2026, 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 61 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
Murders on the Yangtze River 2024	Est. copies ≈ 528k–858k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $2.2M–$5.9M after Steam's cut $4.0M–$9.0M before Steam's cut	$14.99	21k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	DetectiveAdventure
Dorfromantik 2022	Est. copies ≈ 735k–1.2M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $2.8M–$7.6M after Steam's cut $5.1M–$11.7M before Steam's cut	$13.99	30k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	PuzzleRelaxing
Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) 40th Anniversary Edition 2026	Est. copies ≈ 1.8M–2.9M 2.1x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $29.9M–$80.5M after Steam's cut $54.4M–$123.8M before Steam's cut	$59.99	73k reviews Mostly Positive	SimulationFlight
Baba Is You 2019	Est. copies ≈ 712k–1.2M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $2.9M–$7.9M after Steam's cut $5.3M–$12.1M before Steam's cut	$14.99	25k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	PuzzleIndie
XCOM® 2 2016	Est. copies ≈ 4.6M–7.4M 3.2x vs typical SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $25.1M–$67.5M after Steam's cut $45.6M–$103.8M before Steam's cut	$19.99	110k reviews Very Positive	IsometricTurn-Based Combat
Hacknet 2015	Est. copies ≈ 1.3M–2.1M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $3.5M–$9.4M after Steam's cut $6.4M–$14.5M before Steam's cut	$9.99	26k reviews Very Positive	HackingSimulation
Trailmakers 2019	Est. copies ≈ 1.1M–1.8M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $7.8M–$21.0M after Steam's cut $14.2M–$32.3M before Steam's cut	$24.99	39k reviews Very Positive	SpaceAction
Besiege 2020	Est. copies ≈ 1.3M–2.1M 1.5x vs typical SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $5.5M–$14.7M after Steam's cut $9.9M–$22.6M before Steam's cut	$14.99	53k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	SimulationSandbox