How much revenue did The Novelist make?

$90k–$242k after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did The Novelist sell?

Q: How many copies did The Novelist sell?

66k to 107k copies, based on its 1k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 66k–107k; $90k–$242k after Steam's cut $164k–$373k before Steam's cut; from 1k 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 The Novelist and predicted how it would do from its 5 similar games. Every figure here, including The Novelist's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 1.0M–7.2M

best case 28.0M (Baldur's Gate 3)

Games like The Novelist

A typical game among these

≈ 1.0M–7.2M copies

≈ $15.6M–$55.6M after Steam's cut

from ~31k 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 5 of the similar games are hits.

Best case: Baldur's Gate 3 at ≈ 21.3M–34.6M copies, ≈ $351.5M–$945.2M after Steam's cut.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Choices Matter (3 of 5) and Story Rich (3 of 5).
The winners: Winners here lead with Character Customization + Choices Matter, priced around $60.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2014 to 2023, 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 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
Vampyr 2018	Est. copies ≈ 772k–1.3M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $8.5M–$22.8M after Steam's cut $15.4M–$35.1M before Steam's cut	$39.99	25k reviews Mostly Positive	VampireRPG
Quantum Break 2016	Est. copies ≈ 1.3M–2.1M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $14.2M–$38.3M after Steam's cut $25.9M–$58.9M before Steam's cut	$39.99	31k reviews Very Positive	ActionStory Rich
Baldur's Gate 3 2023	Est. copies ≈ 21.3M–34.6M 28x vs typical SteamSpy 20M–50M	Est. revenue $351.5M–$945.2M after Steam's cut $639.2M–$1454.1M before Steam's cut	$59.99	859k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	RPGCharacter Customization
This War of Mine 2014	Est. copies ≈ 5.5M–8.9M 3.1x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $30.1M–$81.0M after Steam's cut $54.8M–$124.6M before Steam's cut	$19.99	98k reviews Very Positive	SurvivalWar
Dishonored®: Death of the Outsider™ 2017	Est. copies ≈ 461k–749k SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $3.8M–$10.2M after Steam's cut $6.9M–$15.7M before Steam's cut	$29.99	13k reviews Very Positive	StealthAction