How much revenue did Penguin Helper make?

$7k–$19k after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Penguin Helper sell?

Q: How many copies did Penguin Helper sell?

13k to 21k copies, based on its 525 Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 13k–21k; $7k–$19k after Steam's cut $13k–$29k before Steam's cut; from 525 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 Penguin Helper and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Penguin Helper's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 21k–285k

best case 878k (Maneater)

Games like Penguin Helper

A typical game among these

≈ 21k–285k copies

≈ $130k–$1.3M after Steam's cut

from ~2k reviews

Only the top fifth of 2019's Steam releases earned $34k or more before Steam's cut, so plan for that or less.

5 of the 8 similar games are hits.

No genre covers most of these similar games. The closest is Exploration (4 of 8), so its genre is hard to place.

Of the 416 indie games that passed 1,000 reviews in 2022, 11.8% were novel genre mixes and 88.2% stuck to an established genre. Published indie market research.

Best case: Maneater at ≈ 669k–1.1M copies, ≈ $7.4M–$19.8M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 193 reviews in their first month; the range was 16 to 2k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Exploration (4 of 8) and Walking Simulator (4 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Open World + Dark Humor, priced around $40.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2017 to 2024, and 1 of the 8 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 43 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
Maneater 2021	Est. copies ≈ 669k–1.1M 17x vs typical SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $7.4M–$19.8M after Steam's cut $13.4M–$30.4M before Steam's cut	$39.99	27k reviews Very Positive	Open WorldDark Humor
Sunlight 2021	Est. copies ≈ 12k–19k SteamSpy 20k–50k	Est. revenue $13k–$34k after Steam's cut $23k–$53k before Steam's cut	$3.99	468 reviews Mostly Positive	AdventureExperimental
SEASON: A letter to the future 2023	Est. copies ≈ 52k–84k SteamSpy 100k–200k	Est. revenue $357k–$960k after Steam's cut $649k–$1.5M before Steam's cut	$24.99	2k reviews Very Positive	Open WorldMystery
Mushroom Season 2024	Est. copies ≈ 7k–12k SteamSpy under 20k	Est. revenue $29k–$79k after Steam's cut $53k–$121k before Steam's cut	$14.99	287 reviews Very Positive	CasualSimulation
AER Memories of Old 2017	Est. copies ≈ 266k–433k 4.9x vs typical SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $1.1M–$3.0M after Steam's cut $2.0M–$4.5M before Steam's cut	$14.99	8k reviews Very Positive	AdventureExploration
A Highland Song 2023	Est. copies ≈ 17k–28k SteamSpy 20k–50k	Est. revenue $84k–$227k after Steam's cut $153k–$349k before Steam's cut	$17.99	688 reviews Very Positive	Exploration2D Platformer
The First Tree 2017	Est. copies ≈ 201k–327k 3.7x vs typical SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $552k–$1.5M after Steam's cut $1.0M–$2.3M before Steam's cut	$9.99	6k reviews Mostly Positive	AtmosphericAdventure
NUTS 2021	Est. copies ≈ 27k–44k SteamSpy 20k–50k	Est. revenue $186k–$500k after Steam's cut $338k–$769k before Steam's cut	$24.99	1k reviews Very Positive	Story RichDetective