How much revenue did Waveform make?

$74k–$199k after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Waveform sell?

Q: How many copies did Waveform sell?

135k to 220k copies, based on its 2k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 135k–220k; $74k–$199k after Steam's cut $134k–$306k 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 Waveform and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Waveform's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 4.0M–5.0M

best case 13.0M (Plants vs. Zombies GOTY Edition)

Games like Waveform

A typical game among these

≈ 4.0M–5.0M copies

≈ $23.0M–$39.0M after Steam's cut

from ~117k 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 Puzzle (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: Plants vs. Zombies GOTY Edition at ≈ 9.9M–16.1M copies, ≈ $13.6M–$36.5M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 21k reviews in their first month; the range was 5k to 23k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Puzzle (3 of 8) and Beautiful (2 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Tower Defense + Zombies, priced around $5.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2009 to 2020, 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
Helltaker 2020	Est. copies ≈ 3.2M–5.2M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue Free	Free	128k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Free to PlayCute
Plants vs. Zombies GOTY Edition 2009	Est. copies ≈ 9.9M–16.1M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $13.6M–$36.5M after Steam's cut $24.7M–$56.1M before Steam's cut	$4.99	156k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Tower DefenseZombies
GRIS 2018	Est. copies ≈ 2.9M–4.8M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $12.1M–$32.5M after Steam's cut $22.0M–$50.0M before Steam's cut	$14.99	96k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	BeautifulAtmospheric
Outer Wilds 2020	Est. copies ≈ 2.7M–4.4M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $18.5M–$49.7M after Steam's cut $33.6M–$76.4M before Steam's cut	$24.99	108k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	ExplorationSpace
Little Nightmares 2017	Est. copies ≈ 4.0M–6.5M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $22.1M–$59.3M after Steam's cut $40.1M–$91.3M before Steam's cut	$19.99	117k reviews Very Positive	HorrorAtmospheric
Soundpad 2017	Est. copies ≈ 3.6M–5.9M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $4.9M–$13.3M after Steam's cut $9.0M–$20.5M before Steam's cut	$4.99	105k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	UtilitiesAudio Production
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
Papers, Please 2013	Est. copies ≈ 5.1M–8.3M too small to compare SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $14.0M–$37.6M after Steam's cut $25.5M–$57.9M before Steam's cut	$9.99	81k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	IndiePolitical