How much revenue did Trolley Problem, Inc. make?

$120k–$322k after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Trolley Problem, Inc. sell?

Q: How many copies did Trolley Problem, Inc. sell?

40k to 64k copies, based on its 2k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 40k–64k; $120k–$322k after Steam's cut $218k–$495k before Steam's cut; from 2k reviews (Mixed)

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 Trolley Problem, Inc. and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Trolley Problem, Inc.'s, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 736k–1.9M

best case 2.9M (Noita)

Games like Trolley Problem, Inc.

A typical game among these

≈ 736k–1.9M copies

≈ $4.9M–$9.3M after Steam's cut

from ~21k 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 Choices Matter (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: Noita at ≈ 2.2M–3.6M copies, ≈ $12.1M–$32.6M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 4k reviews in their first month; the range was 1k to 17k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Choices Matter (3 of 8) and Dark Humor (3 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Physics + Rogue-like, priced around $20.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2014 to 2020, 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 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
60 Seconds! Reatomized 2019	Est. copies ≈ 566k–919k SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $1.6M–$4.2M after Steam's cut $2.8M–$6.4M before Steam's cut	$9.99	20k reviews Very Positive	2DChoose Your Own Adventure
The Test 2020	Est. copies ≈ 499k–810k SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $273k–$734k after Steam's cut $496k–$1.1M before Steam's cut	$1.99	20k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Choose Your Own AdventureSimulation
UNO 2017	Est. copies ≈ 1.9M–3.0M 2.6x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $5.1M–$13.8M after Steam's cut $9.3M–$21.2M before Steam's cut	$9.99	54k reviews Mostly Positive	Card GameMultiplayer
Night in the Woods 2017	Est. copies ≈ 699k–1.1M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $3.8M–$10.3M after Steam's cut $7.0M–$15.9M before Steam's cut	$19.99	20k reviews Very Positive	Story RichAdventure
Beholder 2016	Est. copies ≈ 1.3M–2.1M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $5.0M–$13.4M after Steam's cut $9.1M–$20.6M before Steam's cut	$13.99	31k reviews Very Positive	Dystopian Choices Matter
Spelunky 2 2020	Est. copies ≈ 545k–886k SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $3.0M–$8.1M after Steam's cut $5.5M–$12.4M before Steam's cut	$19.99	22k reviews Very Positive	Platformer2D Platformer
LISA: The Painful 2014	Est. copies ≈ 851k–1.4M SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $4.7M–$12.6M after Steam's cut $8.5M–$19.4M before Steam's cut	$19.99	15k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Dark HumorRPG
Noita 2020	Est. copies ≈ 2.2M–3.6M 4.2x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $12.1M–$32.6M after Steam's cut $22.0M–$50.2M before Steam's cut	$19.99	89k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	PhysicsRogue-like