How much revenue did PAYDAY 2 make?

$117.2M–$315.1M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did PAYDAY 2 sell?

Q: How many copies did PAYDAY 2 sell?

42.7M to 69.3M copies, based on its 675k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 42.7M–69.3M; $117.2M–$315.1M after Steam's cut $213.1M–$484.7M before Steam's cut; from 675k 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 PAYDAY 2 and predicted how it would do from its 6 similar games. Every figure here, including PAYDAY 2's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 80.0M–100.7M

best case 820.1M (Counter-Strike 2)

Games like PAYDAY 2

A typical game among these

≈ 80.0M–100.7M copies

≈ $471.1M–$734.1M after Steam's cut

from ~1.3M 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 6 of the similar games are hits.

Best case: Counter-Strike 2 at ≈ 624.8M–1015.3M copies. It is a breakout hit, far above a typical game.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share FPS (5 of 6) and Shooter (5 of 6).
The winners: Winners here lead with FPS + Shooter. The breakout hits carry Action + Battle Royale + Third-Person Shooter; a typical game here doesn't.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2007 to 2018, 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 38 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
Counter-Strike 2 2012	Est. copies ≈ 624.8M–1015.3M 7.4x vs typical SteamSpy 100M–200M	Est. revenue Free	Free	9.9M reviews Very Positive	FPSShooter
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS 2017	Est. copies ≈ 95.8M–155.7M 2.1x vs typical SteamSpy 100M–200M	Est. revenue Free	Free	2.8M reviews Mixed	SurvivalShooter
Rust 2018	Est. copies ≈ 42.7M–69.3M SteamSpy 20M–50M	Est. revenue $469.3M–$1261.8M after Steam's cut $853.3M–$1941.3M before Steam's cut	$39.99	1.4M reviews Very Positive	SurvivalCrafting
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege 2015	Est. copies ≈ 76.0M–123.4M SteamSpy 20M–50M	Est. revenue Free	Free	1.6M reviews Very Positive	FPSPvP
Left 4 Dead 2 2009	Est. copies ≈ 67.0M–108.9M SteamSpy 50M–100M	Est. revenue $184.1M–$495.0M after Steam's cut $334.7M–$761.6M before Steam's cut	$9.99	1.1M reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	ZombiesCo-op
Team Fortress 2 2007	Est. copies ≈ 79.1M–128.6M SteamSpy 50M–100M	Est. revenue Free	Free	1.3M reviews Very Positive	Free to PlayHero Shooter