How much revenue did Captain of Industry make?

$2.8M–$7.5M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Captain of Industry sell?

Q: How many copies did Captain of Industry sell?

291k to 473k copies, based on its 12k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 291k–473k; $2.8M–$7.5M after Steam's cut $5.1M–$11.6M before Steam's cut; from 12k 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 Captain of Industry and predicted how it would do from its 4 similar games. Every figure here, including Captain of Industry's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 405k–4.2M

best case 7.7M (Factorio)

Games like Captain of Industry

A typical game among these

≈ 405k–4.2M copies

≈ $4.7M–$43.3M after Steam's cut

from ~54k 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 4 of the similar games are hits.

This comes from a small set of games, so take it as a sketch.

Best case: Factorio at ≈ 5.9M–9.5M copies, ≈ $56.4M–$151.5M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 20k reviews in their first month; the range was 2k to 86k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Automation (4 of 4) and Base-Building (3 of 4).
The winners: Winners here lead with Automation + Base-Building, priced around $35.
When they shipped: 2 of the 4 similar games shipped in the last two years, so this genre is actively shipping.

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
shapez 2 - Factory 2026	Est. copies ≈ 385k–625k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $3.2M–$8.5M after Steam's cut $5.8M–$13.1M before Steam's cut	$29.99	16k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	ManagementStrategy
Factorio 2020	Est. copies ≈ 5.9M–9.5M 4.4x vs typical SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $56.4M–$151.5M after Steam's cut $102.5M–$233.1M before Steam's cut	$35.00	236k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	AutomationBase-Building
Dyson Sphere Program 2021	Est. copies ≈ 2.3M–3.7M 1.7x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $12.5M–$33.7M after Steam's cut $22.8M–$51.9M before Steam's cut	$19.99	92k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	AutomationSpace
Techtonica 2024	Est. copies ≈ 81k–132k SteamSpy 100k–200k	Est. revenue $671k–$1.8M after Steam's cut $1.2M–$2.8M before Steam's cut	$29.99	3k reviews Mixed	Automation Simulation