How much revenue did Starfield make?

$59.8M–$160.9M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Starfield sell?

Q: How many copies did Starfield sell?

4.4M to 7.1M copies, based on its 175k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 4.4M–7.1M; $59.8M–$160.9M after Steam's cut $108.8M–$247.5M before Steam's cut; from 175k 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 Starfield and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Starfield's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 9.1M–23.5M

best case 37.9M (HELLDIVERS™ 2)

Games like Starfield

A typical game among these

≈ 9.1M–23.5M copies

≈ $118.3M–$370.6M after Steam's cut

from ~314k 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: HELLDIVERS™ 2 at ≈ 28.9M–46.9M copies, ≈ $317.6M–$854.0M after Steam's cut.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Exploration (4 of 8) and Sci-fi (4 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Third-Person Shooter + Shooter, priced around $40.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2016 to 2024, and 1 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 52 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
Stellaris 2016	Est. copies ≈ 8.2M–13.3M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $112.6M–$302.6M after Steam's cut $204.7M–$465.6M before Steam's cut	$49.99	197k reviews Very Positive	SpaceGrand Strategy
Destiny 2 2019	Est. copies ≈ 19.1M–31.0M 2.1x vs typical SteamSpy 20M–50M	Est. revenue Free	Free	663k reviews Mostly Positive	Free to PlayOpen World
RimWorld 2018	Est. copies ≈ 7.6M–12.3M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $72.7M–$195.4M after Steam's cut $132.2M–$300.7M before Steam's cut	$34.99	249k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Colony SimBase-Building
Deep Rock Galactic 2020	Est. copies ≈ 9.4M–15.3M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $77.8M–$209.2M after Steam's cut $141.5M–$321.9M before Steam's cut	$29.99	380k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	DwarfCo-op
Starbound 2016	Est. copies ≈ 5.1M–8.3M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $21.1M–$56.9M after Steam's cut $38.4M–$87.5M before Steam's cut	$14.99	123k reviews Very Positive	Open World Survival CraftSandbox
No Man's Sky 2016	Est. copies ≈ 17.5M–28.5M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $289.3M–$777.8M after Steam's cut $526.0M–$1196.6M before Steam's cut	$59.99	422k reviews Very Positive	Open WorldOpen World Survival Craft
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
HELLDIVERS™ 2 2024	Est. copies ≈ 28.9M–46.9M 3.7x vs typical SteamSpy 20M–50M	Est. revenue $317.6M–$854.0M after Steam's cut $577.5M–$1313.8M before Steam's cut	$39.99	1.2M reviews Mostly Positive	Online Co-OpPvE