How much revenue did The Vanishing of Ethan Carter make?

$2.8M–$7.4M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did The Vanishing of Ethan Carter sell?

Q: How many copies did The Vanishing of Ethan Carter sell?

503k to 818k copies, based on its 9k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 503k–818k; $2.8M–$7.4M after Steam's cut $5.0M–$11.4M before Steam's cut; from 9k 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 The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and predicted how it would do from its 4 similar games. Every figure here, including The Vanishing of Ethan Carter's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 189k–3.2M

best case 5.5M (Firewatch)

Games like The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

A typical game among these

≈ 189k–3.2M copies

≈ $1.3M–$24.5M after Steam's cut

from ~30k 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 4 of the similar games are hits.

This comes from a small set of games, so take it as a sketch.

Best case: Firewatch at ≈ 4.2M–6.8M copies, ≈ $22.9M–$61.5M after Steam's cut.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Mystery (4 of 4) and Story Rich (4 of 4).
The winners: Winners here lead with Story Rich + Walking Simulator, priced around $20.
When they shipped: None of the similar games shipped in the last two years; the newest is from 2020. That says more about which games were found than about the market.

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 52 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
Draugen 2019	Est. copies ≈ 62k–101k SteamSpy 100k–200k	Est. revenue $340k–$915k after Steam's cut $619k–$1.4M before Steam's cut	$19.99	2k reviews Mostly Positive	Story RichMystery
The Suicide of Rachel Foster 2020	Est. copies ≈ 172k–279k SteamSpy 100k–200k	Est. revenue $849k–$2.3M after Steam's cut $1.5M–$3.5M before Steam's cut	$17.99	7k reviews Mixed	Walking SimulatorMystery
What Remains of Edith Finch 2017	Est. copies ≈ 1.8M–3.0M 1.8x vs typical SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $10.1M–$27.2M after Steam's cut $18.4M–$41.8M before Steam's cut	$19.99	53k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Story RichAtmospheric
Firewatch 2016	Est. copies ≈ 4.2M–6.8M 3.3x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $22.9M–$61.5M after Steam's cut $41.6M–$94.6M before Steam's cut	$19.99	100k reviews Very Positive	AdventureAtmospheric