How much revenue did Proteus make?

$487k–$1.3M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Proteus sell?

Q: How many copies did Proteus sell?

177k to 288k copies, based on its 3k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 177k–288k; $487k–$1.3M after Steam's cut $886k–$2.0M before Steam's cut; from 3k 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 Proteus and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Proteus's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 1.4M–2.6M

best case 6.2M (DARK SOULS™: REMASTERED)

Games like Proteus

A typical game among these

≈ 1.4M–2.6M copies

≈ $12.0M–$28.5M after Steam's cut

from ~39k 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 Beautiful (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: DARK SOULS™: REMASTERED at ≈ 4.8M–7.7M copies, ≈ $52.3M–$140.6M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 5k reviews in their first month; the range was 2k to 7k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Beautiful (3 of 8) and Exploration (3 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Souls-like + Dark Fantasy, priced around $40.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2014 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 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
Crime Scene Cleaner 2024	Est. copies ≈ 858k–1.4M SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $7.1M–$19.0M after Steam's cut $12.9M–$29.3M before Steam's cut	$29.99	35k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	SimulationCrime
GRIS 2018	Est. copies ≈ 2.9M–4.8M 2.5x vs typical 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
Thief Simulator 2018	Est. copies ≈ 1.2M–2.0M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $6.7M–$17.9M after Steam's cut $12.1M–$27.6M before Steam's cut	$19.99	40k reviews Very Positive	Simulation Stealth
DARK SOULS™: REMASTERED 2018	Est. copies ≈ 4.8M–7.7M 4.0x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $52.3M–$140.6M after Steam's cut $95.1M–$216.3M before Steam's cut	$39.99	156k reviews Very Positive	Souls-likeDark Fantasy
DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR'S CUT 2022	Est. copies ≈ 1.7M–2.8M 1.8x vs typical SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $18.8M–$50.6M after Steam's cut $34.2M–$77.8M before Steam's cut	$39.99	69k reviews Very Positive	Story RichOpen World
ABZU 2016	Est. copies ≈ 1.2M–1.9M SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $6.3M–$17.0M after Steam's cut $11.5M–$26.2M before Steam's cut	$19.99	28k reviews Very Positive	RelaxingAtmospheric
The Plan 2014	Est. copies ≈ 1.3M–2.2M SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue Free	Free	24k reviews Very Positive	Free to PlayIndie
Journey 2020	Est. copies ≈ 958k–1.6M SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $3.9M–$10.6M after Steam's cut $7.2M–$16.3M before Steam's cut	$14.99	39k reviews Very Positive	BeautifulAtmospheric