How much revenue did The Oregon Trail make?

$266k–$715k after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did The Oregon Trail sell?

Q: How many copies did The Oregon Trail sell?

32k to 52k copies, based on its 1k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 32k–52k; $266k–$715k after Steam's cut $483k–$1.1M before Steam's cut; from 1k reviews (Mostly 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 The Oregon Trail and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including The Oregon Trail's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 159k–411k

best case 1.6M (Kingdom Two Crowns)

Games like The Oregon Trail

A typical game among these

≈ 159k–411k copies

≈ $1.2M–$2.3M after Steam's cut

from ~7k 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 City Builder (2 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: Kingdom Two Crowns at ≈ 1.2M–2.0M copies, ≈ $6.7M–$17.9M after Steam's cut. It is a breakout hit, far above a typical game.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 2k reviews in their first month; the range was 808 to 4k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share City Builder (2 of 8) and Detective (2 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Tower Defense + City Builder, priced around $20. The breakout hits carry Tower Defense + Minimalist + Building; a typical game here doesn't.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2015 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 61 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
Steam Link 2015	Est. copies ≈ 360k–584k SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue Free	Free	7k reviews Mostly Positive	Steam MachineSoftware
The World of Kungfu: Dragon and Eagle 2024	Est. copies ≈ 120k–196k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $595k–$1.6M after Steam's cut $1.1M–$2.5M before Steam's cut	$17.99	5k reviews Mixed	RPGIndie
Clanfolk 2022	Est. copies ≈ 101k–165k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $836k–$2.2M after Steam's cut $1.5M–$3.5M before Steam's cut	$29.99	4k reviews Very Positive	StrategySimulation
Kingdom Two Crowns 2018	Est. copies ≈ 1.2M–2.0M 5.4x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $6.7M–$17.9M after Steam's cut $12.1M–$27.6M before Steam's cut	$19.99	40k reviews Very Positive	Tower DefenseMinimalist
Yes, Your Grace 2020	Est. copies ≈ 353k–574k 1.9x vs typical SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $1.9M–$5.2M after Steam's cut $3.5M–$8.0M before Steam's cut	$19.99	14k reviews Very Positive	Choices MatterIndie
The End Is Nigh 2017	Est. copies ≈ 121k–197k SteamSpy 100k–200k	Est. revenue $500k–$1.3M after Steam's cut $909k–$2.1M before Steam's cut	$14.99	4k reviews Very Positive	Precision Platformer Platformer
The Rewinder 2021	Est. copies ≈ 183k–297k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $754k–$2.0M after Steam's cut $1.4M–$3.1M before Steam's cut	$14.99	7k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	AdventureMystery
The Case of the Golden Idol 2022	Est. copies ≈ 273k–444k SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $1.4M–$3.6M after Steam's cut $2.5M–$5.6M before Steam's cut	$17.99	11k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	MysteryDetective