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–$372k before the cut; from 1k reviews (Mostly Positive)

A labeled estimate from the public review count (adjusted for release year), not exact sales. Owner data cross-checked with SteamSpy.

Does this actually work?

We left The Novelist out and predicted the genre from its 5 similar games. Every figure here, including The Novelist's, is estimated from Steam reviews, not self-reported sales.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 1.0M–7.2M

best case 27.9M (Baldur's Gate 3)

Games like The Novelist

The middle of these games

≈ 1.0M–7.2M copies

≈ $15.5M–$55.5M after Steam's cut

from ~31k reviews

Only the top fifth of 2019’s Steam releases earned about $34k gross, so plan for that or less.

All 5 of your similar games are hits.

Best case: Baldur's Gate 3 at ≈ 21.2M–34.5M copies, ≈ $350.1M–$941.4M after Steam's cut.

The genre you'd be entering

Your set: Your set clusters on Choices Matter (3 of 5) and Story Rich (3 of 5).
The winners: Winners here lead with Character Customization + Choices Matter, priced around $60.
The era: The games you compared 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 ≈ 766k–1.2M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $8.4M–$22.6M after Steam's cut $15.3M–$34.8M before the cut	$39.99	25k reviews Mostly Positive	VampireRPG
Quantum Break 2016	Est. copies ≈ 1.3M–2.1M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $14.2M–$38.1M after Steam's cut $25.8M–$58.6M before the cut	$39.99	31k reviews Very Positive	ActionStory Rich
Baldur's Gate 3 2023	Est. copies ≈ 21.2M–34.5M 28x vs typical SteamSpy 20M–50M	Est. revenue $350.1M–$941.4M after Steam's cut $636.6M–$1448.3M before the cut	$59.99	856k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	RPGCharacter Customization
This War of Mine 2014	Est. copies ≈ 5.5M–8.9M 3.2x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $30.1M–$80.9M after Steam's cut $54.7M–$124.4M before the cut	$19.99	98k reviews Very Positive	SurvivalWar
Dishonored®: Death of the Outsider™ 2017	Est. copies ≈ 460k–747k SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $3.8M–$10.2M after Steam's cut $6.9M–$15.7M before the cut	$29.99	13k reviews Very Positive	StealthAction