How much revenue did Cruelty Squad make?

$3.4M–$9.2M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Cruelty Squad sell?

Q: How many copies did Cruelty Squad sell?

621k to 1.0M copies, based on its 25k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 621k–1.0M; $3.4M–$9.2M after Steam's cut $6.2M–$14.1M before Steam's cut; from 25k 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 Cruelty Squad and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Cruelty Squad's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 51k–91k

best case 130k (Golden Light)

Games like Cruelty Squad

A typical game among these

≈ 51k–91k copies

≈ $189k–$614k after Steam's cut

from ~2k reviews

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

3 of the 8 similar games are hits.

No genre covers most of these similar games. The closest is Immersive Sim (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: Golden Light at ≈ 99k–161k copies, ≈ $546k–$1.5M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 3 reviews in their first month; the range was 1 to 1k.

Games with under about 100 reviews in month one almost never recover.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Immersive Sim (3 of 8) and Life Sim (3 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Stealth + Procedural Generation, priced around $20.
When they shipped: Only 2 of the 8 similar games shipped in the last two years. That says more about which games were found than about the market.

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 of about 31, 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
Golden Light 2022	Est. copies ≈ 99k–161k 2.5x vs typical SteamSpy under 20k	Est. revenue $546k–$1.5M after Steam's cut $992k–$2.3M before Steam's cut	$19.99	4k reviews Very Positive	3DAction
You Are Weak 2021	Est. copies ≈ 223–363 too small to compare SteamSpy 20k–50k	Est. revenue $183–$494 after Steam's cut $333–$760 before Steam's cut	$2.99	9 reviews 9 user reviews	ExperimentalSingleplayer
USD Clicker 2024	Est. copies ≈ 99–161 too small to compare SteamSpy under 20k	Est. revenue $27–$73 after Steam's cut $49–$112 before Steam's cut	$0.99	4 reviews 4 user reviews	ClickerIdler
Waste It 2022	Est. copies ≈ 149–242 too small to compare SteamSpy under 20k	Est. revenue $4k–$11k after Steam's cut $7k–$17k before Steam's cut	$99.99	6 reviews 6 user reviews	SandboxLife Sim
Trolley Problem, Inc. 2022	Est. copies ≈ 40k–64k SteamSpy 20k–50k	Est. revenue $120k–$322k after Steam's cut $218k–$495k before Steam's cut	$10.99	2k reviews Mixed	Choices MatterIndie
accelerating hotkeys 2022	Est. copies ≈ 25–40 too small to compare SteamSpy under 20k	Est. revenue $34–$91 after Steam's cut $62–$140 before Steam's cut	$4.99	1 reviews 1 user reviews	TypingTime Management
FACEMINER 2025	Est. copies ≈ 39k–63k SteamSpy 50k–100k	Est. revenue $85k–$229k after Steam's cut $155k–$352k before Steam's cut	$7.99	2k reviews Very Positive	ClickerSimulation
Why pizza? 2021	Est. copies ≈ 322–524 too small to compare SteamSpy under 20k	Est. revenue $2k–$5k after Steam's cut $3k–$7k before Steam's cut	$18.99	13 reviews Mixed	Precision PlatformerSide Scroller