How much revenue did Retro Wave make?

$20–$55 after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Retro Wave sell?

Q: How many copies did Retro Wave sell?

25 to 40 copies, based on its 1 Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 25–40; $20–$55 after Steam's cut $37–$84 before Steam's cut; from 1 review (1 user reviews); Only 1 review so far, so that range swings on one or two people. Read it as a hint, not a measurement.

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 Retro Wave and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Retro Wave's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 3.8M–6.4M

best case 23.0M (No Man's Sky)

Games like Retro Wave

A typical game among these

≈ 3.8M–6.4M copies

≈ $25.3M–$78.7M after Steam's cut

from ~105k reviews

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

6 of the 8 similar games are hits.

No genre covers most of these similar games. The closest is Space (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: No Man's Sky at ≈ 17.5M–28.5M copies, ≈ $289.3M–$777.8M after Steam's cut.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Space (4 of 8) and VR (4 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Open World + Open World Survival Craft, 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
Elite Dangerous 2015	Est. copies ≈ 5.3M–8.5M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $28.9M–$77.8M after Steam's cut $52.6M–$119.6M before Steam's cut	$19.99	108k reviews Mostly Positive	Space SimSpace
Soundpad 2017	Est. copies ≈ 3.6M–5.9M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $4.9M–$13.3M after Steam's cut $9.0M–$20.5M before Steam's cut	$4.99	105k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	UtilitiesAudio Production
Alien: Isolation 2014	Est. copies ≈ 3.8M–6.1M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $41.3M–$110.9M after Steam's cut $75.0M–$170.6M before Steam's cut	$39.99	67k reviews Very Positive	Horror Survival Horror
Half-Life: Alyx 2020	Est. copies ≈ 2.6M–4.3M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $43.2M–$116.1M after Steam's cut $78.5M–$178.5M before Steam's cut	$59.99	106k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	VRFPS
Neon Music Drums 2023	Est. copies ≈ 25–40 too small to compare SteamSpy under 20k	Est. revenue $62–$164 after Steam's cut $112–$252 before Steam's cut	$8.99	1 reviews 1 user reviews	SportsVR
No Man's Sky 2016	Est. copies ≈ 17.5M–28.5M 4.0x vs typical SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $289.3M–$777.8M after Steam's cut $526.0M–$1196.6M before Steam's cut	$59.99	422k reviews Very Positive	Open WorldOpen World Survival Craft
LyraVR 2017	Est. copies ≈ 860–1k too small to compare SteamSpy under 20k	Est. revenue $4k–$10k after Steam's cut $6k–$15k before Steam's cut	$14.99	25 reviews Positive	VRMusic
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