How much revenue did Riven make?

$689k–$1.9M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Riven sell?

Q: How many copies did Riven sell?

72k to 116k copies, based on its 3k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 72k–116k; $689k–$1.9M after Steam's cut $1.3M–$2.9M before Steam's cut; from 3k 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 Riven and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Riven's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 5.8M–9.6M

best case 12.2M (Hogwarts Legacy)

Games like Riven

A typical game among these

≈ 5.8M–9.6M copies

≈ $64.4M–$145.4M after Steam's cut

from ~177k 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 Exploration (4 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: Hogwarts Legacy at ≈ 9.3M–15.1M copies, ≈ $153.2M–$412.0M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 46k reviews in their first month; the range was 16k to 171k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Exploration (4 of 8) and Open World (3 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Magic + Open World, priced around $60.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2013 to 2023, 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
It Takes Two 2021	Est. copies ≈ 6.7M–10.9M 1.5x vs typical SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $73.7M–$198.3M after Steam's cut $134.1M–$305.0M before Steam's cut	$39.99	270k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Co-opMultiplayer
Resident Evil 7 Biohazard 2017	Est. copies ≈ 4.4M–7.1M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $24.1M–$64.9M after Steam's cut $43.9M–$99.9M before Steam's cut	$19.99	128k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Horror Survival Horror
STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order™ 2019	Est. copies ≈ 5.1M–8.2M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $55.6M–$149.5M after Steam's cut $101.1M–$230.0M before Steam's cut	$39.99	176k reviews Very Positive	Action-AdventureSouls-like
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
Tomb Raider Game of the Year 2013	Est. copies ≈ 17.1M–27.8M 1.5x vs typical SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $94.0M–$252.8M after Steam's cut $171.0M–$388.9M before Steam's cut	$19.99	271k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	AdventureAction
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
Rise of the Tomb Raider™ 2016	Est. copies ≈ 6.5M–10.6M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $53.7M–$144.2M after Steam's cut $97.5M–$221.9M before Steam's cut	$29.99	156k reviews Very Positive	AdventureAction
Hogwarts Legacy 2023	Est. copies ≈ 9.3M–15.1M 2.1x vs typical SteamSpy 20M–50M	Est. revenue $153.2M–$412.0M after Steam's cut $278.6M–$633.8M before Steam's cut	$59.99	375k reviews Very Positive	MagicOpen World