How much revenue did World of Goo make?

$1.7M–$4.6M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did World of Goo sell?

Q: How many copies did World of Goo sell?

417k to 678k copies, based on its 7k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 417k–678k; $1.7M–$4.6M after Steam's cut $3.1M–$7.1M before Steam's cut; from 7k 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 World of Goo and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including World of Goo's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 1.6M–13.4M

best case 38.8M (Portal 2)

Games like World of Goo

A typical game among these

≈ 1.6M–13.4M copies

≈ $14.5M–$71.9M after Steam's cut

from ~99k 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: Portal 2 at ≈ 29.5M–48.0M copies, ≈ $81.1M–$218.1M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 31k reviews in their first month; the range was 3k to 38k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Physics (5 of 8) and Puzzle (5 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Platformer + Puzzle, 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
Portal 2007	Est. copies ≈ 12.6M–20.5M 2.0x vs typical SteamSpy 10M–20M	Est. revenue $34.6M–$93.1M after Steam's cut $63.0M–$143.3M before Steam's cut	$9.99	199k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	PuzzlePuzzle-Platformer
Superliminal 2020	Est. copies ≈ 848k–1.4M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $4.7M–$12.5M after Steam's cut $8.5M–$19.3M before Steam's cut	$19.99	34k reviews Very Positive	PuzzleFirst-Person
BONEWORKS 2019	Est. copies ≈ 1.1M–1.7M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $8.7M–$23.3M after Steam's cut $15.8M–$35.8M before Steam's cut	$29.99	36k reviews Very Positive	VRPhysics
Besiege 2020	Est. copies ≈ 1.3M–2.1M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $5.5M–$14.7M after Steam's cut $9.9M–$22.6M before Steam's cut	$14.99	53k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	SimulationSandbox
Human Fall Flat 2016	Est. copies ≈ 9.5M–15.4M 2.3x vs typical SteamSpy 10M–20M	Est. revenue $52.0M–$139.7M after Steam's cut $94.5M–$214.9M before Steam's cut	$19.99	227k reviews Very Positive	Co-opFunny
Portal 2 2011	Est. copies ≈ 29.5M–48.0M 4.7x vs typical SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $81.1M–$218.1M after Steam's cut $147.5M–$335.6M before Steam's cut	$9.99	467k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Platformer Puzzle
LIMBO 2011	Est. copies ≈ 3.9M–6.4M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $13.5M–$36.3M after Steam's cut $24.5M–$55.8M before Steam's cut	$12.49	62k reviews Very Positive	Puzzle-PlatformerIndie
Teardown 2022	Est. copies ≈ 3.4M–5.5M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $27.9M–$75.0M after Steam's cut $50.7M–$115.4M before Steam's cut	$29.99	136k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	DestructionPhysics