How much revenue did Game Dev Story make?

$93k–$249k after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Game Dev Story sell?

Q: How many copies did Game Dev Story sell?

37k to 61k copies, based on its 2k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 37k–61k; $93k–$249k after Steam's cut $168k–$383k before Steam's cut; from 2k 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 Game Dev Story and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Game Dev Story's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 396k–934k

best case 1.2M (Against the Storm)

Games like Game Dev Story

A typical game among these

≈ 396k–934k copies

≈ $3.1M–$7.9M after Steam's cut

from ~15k 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 4X (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: Against the Storm at ≈ 934k–1.5M copies, ≈ $7.7M–$20.7M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 8k reviews in their first month; the range was 744 to 22k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share 4X (4 of 8) and Building (4 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with City Builder + Simulation, priced around $30.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2013 to 2026, and 2 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 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
Stronghold Crusader HD (2012) 2013	Est. copies ≈ 1.3M–2.2M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $3.7M–$9.9M after Steam's cut $6.7M–$15.2M before Steam's cut	$9.99	21k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	MilitaryCity Builder
shapez 2020	Est. copies ≈ 396k–644k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $1.1M–$2.9M after Steam's cut $2.0M–$4.5M before Steam's cut	$9.99	16k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	AutomationBase-Building
Airships: Conquer the Skies 2018	Est. copies ≈ 201k–327k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $1.4M–$3.7M after Steam's cut $2.5M–$5.7M before Steam's cut	$24.99	7k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Vehicular Combat4X
Terra Invicta 2026	Est. copies ≈ 247k–401k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $2.7M–$7.3M after Steam's cut $4.9M–$11.2M before Steam's cut	$39.99	10k reviews Very Positive	StrategySimulation
Farthest Frontier 2025	Est. copies ≈ 638k–1.0M 1.7x vs typical SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $6.1M–$16.5M after Steam's cut $11.2M–$25.4M before Steam's cut	$34.99	26k reviews Very Positive	Early AccessHistorical
Cosmoteer: Starship Architect & Commander 2022	Est. copies ≈ 320k–521k SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $1.8M–$4.7M after Steam's cut $3.2M–$7.3M before Steam's cut	$19.99	13k reviews Very Positive	Sci-fiSingleplayer
Dune: Spice Wars 2023	Est. copies ≈ 337k–548k SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $3.2M–$8.7M after Steam's cut $5.9M–$13.4M before Steam's cut	$34.99	14k reviews Mostly Positive	ManagementSingleplayer
Against the Storm 2023	Est. copies ≈ 934k–1.5M 2.5x vs typical SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $7.7M–$20.7M after Steam's cut $14.0M–$31.9M before Steam's cut	$29.99	38k reviews Very Positive	StrategyCity Builder