How much revenue did Better Off Dead - Life as a Prison Guard make?

$175–$472 after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Better Off Dead - Life as a Prison Guard sell?

Q: How many copies did Better Off Dead - Life as a Prison Guard sell?

645 to 1k copies, based on its 26 Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 645–1k; $175–$472 after Steam's cut $319–$726 before Steam's cut; from 26 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 Better Off Dead - Life as a Prison Guard and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Better Off Dead - Life as a Prison Guard's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 513–1.2M

best case 4.6M (Fallout 76)

Games like Better Off Dead - Life as a Prison Guard

A typical game among these

≈ 513–1.2M copies

≈ $2k–$11.2M after Steam's cut

from ~46 reviews

Only the top fifth of 2019's Steam releases earned $34k or more before Steam's cut, so plan for that or less.

3 of the 8 similar games are hits.

No genre covers most of these similar games. The closest is Horror (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: Fallout 76 at ≈ 3.5M–5.7M copies, ≈ $38.4M–$103.3M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 43 reviews in their first month; the range was 1 to 14k.

Games with under about 100 reviews in month one almost never recover.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Horror (4 of 8) and Gore (3 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Open World + Post-apocalyptic, priced around $40.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2012 to 2024, and 3 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
POSTAL 2 2012	Est. copies ≈ 8.7M–14.2M 3006x vs typical SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $24.0M–$64.5M after Steam's cut $43.6M–$99.3M before Steam's cut	$9.99	138k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	ViolentDark Humor
Fallout 76 2020	Est. copies ≈ 3.5M–5.7M 3062x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $38.4M–$103.3M after Steam's cut $69.8M–$158.9M before Steam's cut	$39.99	141k reviews Mostly Positive	Open WorldMultiplayer
Mouthwashing 2024	Est. copies ≈ 0 SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $0 after Steam's cut $0 before Steam's cut	$12.99	0 reviews No user reviews	Psychological Horror Story Rich
Christmas Massacre 2021	Est. copies ≈ 28k–45k 24x vs typical SteamSpy 100k–200k	Est. revenue $61k–$163k after Steam's cut $110k–$251k before Steam's cut	$7.99	1k reviews Very Positive	ViolentAction
Folletti 2023	Est. copies ≈ 74–121 SteamSpy 20k–50k	Est. revenue $204–$550 after Steam's cut $370–$846 before Steam's cut	$9.99	3 reviews 3 user reviews	Dark FantasyRPG
The Zombie Neighborhood 2023	Est. copies ≈ 794–1k SteamSpy 50k–100k	Est. revenue $3k–$8k after Steam's cut $6k–$13k before Steam's cut	$13.99	32 reviews Mixed	ZombiesHorror
Blackout Memphis 2024	Est. copies ≈ 496–806 SteamSpy under 20k	Est. revenue $1k–$4k after Steam's cut $2k–$6k before Steam's cut	$9.99	20 reviews Positive	GoreTop-Down Shooter
Taken Soul \| Đoạt Mệnh 2024	Est. copies ≈ 1k–2k SteamSpy under 20k	Est. revenue $4k–$11k after Steam's cut $7k–$17k before Steam's cut	$9.99	60 reviews Mixed	Action-AdventureThird-Person Shooter