How much revenue did Paper Trail make?

$133k–$359k after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Paper Trail sell?

Q: How many copies did Paper Trail sell?

24k to 39k copies, based on its 979 Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 24k–39k; $133k–$359k after Steam's cut $243k–$552k before Steam's cut; from 979 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 Paper Trail and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Paper Trail's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 696k–1.1M

best case 1.5M (We Were Here)

Games like Paper Trail

A typical game among these

≈ 696k–1.1M copies

≈ $1.5M–$3.1M after Steam's cut

from ~18k 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 (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: We Were Here at ≈ 1.1M–1.9M copies.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Exploration (3 of 8) and Puzzle (3 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Co-op + Escape Room.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2014 to 2021, 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
Mountain 2014	Est. copies ≈ 912k–1.5M SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $248k–$668k after Steam's cut $452k–$1.0M before Steam's cut	$0.99	16k reviews Very Positive	SimulationIndie
Webbed 2021	Est. copies ≈ 380k–617k SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $1.0M–$2.8M after Steam's cut $1.9M–$4.3M before Steam's cut	$9.99	15k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	2D PlatformerCute
Townscaper 2021	Est. copies ≈ 537k–872k SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $884k–$2.4M after Steam's cut $1.6M–$3.7M before Steam's cut	$5.99	22k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	ExperimentalBuilding
We Were Here Together 2019	Est. copies ≈ 512k–831k SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $1.8M–$4.9M after Steam's cut $3.3M–$7.6M before Steam's cut	$12.99	18k reviews Very Positive	PuzzleOnline Co-Op
FAR: Lone Sails 2018	Est. copies ≈ 806k–1.3M 1.5x vs typical SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $3.3M–$8.9M after Steam's cut $6.0M–$13.7M before Steam's cut	$14.99	27k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	AtmosphericAdventure
Refunct 2015	Est. copies ≈ 852k–1.4M SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $701k–$1.9M after Steam's cut $1.3M–$2.9M before Steam's cut	$2.99	17k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Parkour3D Platformer
Cat Goes Fishing 2015	Est. copies ≈ 808k–1.3M SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $1.6M–$4.2M after Steam's cut $2.8M–$6.4M before Steam's cut	$6.99	17k reviews Very Positive	FishingCats
We Were Here 2017	Est. copies ≈ 1.1M–1.9M 1.9x vs typical SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue Free	Free	33k reviews Very Positive	Free to PlayCo-op