How much revenue did Quake III Arena make?

$1.1M–$2.9M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Quake III Arena sell?

Q: How many copies did Quake III Arena sell?

260k to 422k copies, based on its 4k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 260k–422k; $1.1M–$2.9M after Steam's cut $1.9M–$4.4M before Steam's cut; from 4k reviews (Overwhelmingly 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 Quake III Arena and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Quake III Arena's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 794k–1.3M

best case 1.3M (Quake Champions)

Games like Quake III Arena

A typical game among these

≈ 794k–1.3M copies

≈ $3.9M–$6.6M after Steam's cut

from ~17k 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.

Best case: Quake Champions at ≈ 972k–1.6M copies, ≈ $2.7M–$7.2M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 6k reviews in their first month; the range was 4k to 33k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share FPS (8 of 8) and Shooter (7 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Arena Shooter + Hero Shooter, priced around $10.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2007 to 2022, 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
Quake 2007	Est. copies ≈ 1.0M–1.7M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $2.9M–$7.7M after Steam's cut $5.2M–$11.8M before Steam's cut	$9.99	16k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	FPSClassic
Quake II 2007	Est. copies ≈ 659k–1.1M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $1.8M–$4.9M after Steam's cut $3.3M–$7.5M before Steam's cut	$9.99	10k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	FPSClassic
DUSK 2018	Est. copies ≈ 778k–1.3M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $4.3M–$11.5M after Steam's cut $7.8M–$17.7M before Steam's cut	$19.99	26k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Boomer ShooterFPS
Prodeus 2022	Est. copies ≈ 205k–333k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $1.4M–$3.8M after Steam's cut $2.6M–$5.8M before Steam's cut	$24.99	8k reviews Very Positive	Boomer ShooterFPS
Fistful of Frags 2014	Est. copies ≈ 2.1M–3.4M 2.2x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue Free	Free	37k reviews Very Positive	PvPArena Shooter
Quake Live 2014	Est. copies ≈ 890k–1.4M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $2.4M–$6.6M after Steam's cut $4.4M–$10.1M before Steam's cut	$9.99	16k reviews Very Positive	FPSArena Shooter
Quake Champions 2022	Est. copies ≈ 972k–1.6M 2.3x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $2.7M–$7.2M after Steam's cut $4.9M–$11.0M before Steam's cut	$9.99	39k reviews Mostly Positive	Arena ShooterHero Shooter
Serious Sam 4 2020	Est. copies ≈ 442k–718k SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $4.9M–$13.1M after Steam's cut $8.8M–$20.1M before Steam's cut	$39.99	18k reviews Very Positive	ActionGore