How much revenue did Yoku's Island Express make?

$892k–$2.4M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Yoku's Island Express sell?

Q: How many copies did Yoku's Island Express sell?

162k to 264k copies, based on its 5k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 162k–264k; $892k–$2.4M after Steam's cut $1.6M–$3.7M before Steam's cut; from 5k reviews (Overwhelmingly 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 Yoku's Island Express and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Yoku's Island Express's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 4.5M–7.0M

best case 25.6M (Hollow Knight)

Games like Yoku's Island Express

A typical game among these

≈ 4.5M–7.0M copies

≈ $43.1M–$63.5M after Steam's cut

from ~147k 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 8 of the similar games are hits.

No genre covers most of these similar games. The closest is Platformer (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: Hollow Knight at ≈ 19.5M–31.6M copies, ≈ $80.3M–$215.8M after Steam's cut. It is a breakout hit, far above a typical game.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Platformer (4 of 8) and Metroidvania (3 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Metroidvania + Souls-like, priced around $15. The breakout hits carry 2D + Difficult + Metroidvania; a typical game here doesn't.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2010 to 2020, 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 79 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
STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order™ 2019	Est. copies ≈ 5.1M–8.2M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $55.6M–$149.5M after Steam's cut $101.1M–$230.0M before Steam's cut	$39.99	176k reviews Very Positive	Action-AdventureSouls-like
Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition 2010	Est. copies ≈ 5.5M–9.0M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $30.5M–$82.0M after Steam's cut $55.5M–$126.2M before Steam's cut	$19.99	88k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	ActionStealth
Dead Cells 2018	Est. copies ≈ 5.6M–9.1M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $38.4M–$103.2M after Steam's cut $69.8M–$158.8M before Steam's cut	$24.99	184k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	AdventureAction Roguelike
Hollow Knight 2017	Est. copies ≈ 19.5M–31.6M 3.9x vs typical SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $80.3M–$215.8M after Steam's cut $145.9M–$332.0M before Steam's cut	$14.99	566k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Metroidvania Souls-like
Ori and the Will of the Wisps 2020	Est. copies ≈ 3.6M–5.9M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $30.0M–$80.6M after Steam's cut $54.5M–$124.0M before Steam's cut	$29.99	147k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	BeautifulMetroidvania
Celeste 2018	Est. copies ≈ 4.5M–7.4M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $24.9M–$67.0M after Steam's cut $45.3M–$103.1M before Steam's cut	$19.99	149k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Precision PlatformerDifficult
GRIS 2018	Est. copies ≈ 2.9M–4.8M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $12.1M–$32.5M after Steam's cut $22.0M–$50.0M before Steam's cut	$14.99	96k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	BeautifulAtmospheric
INSIDE 2016	Est. copies ≈ 3.2M–5.2M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $21.8M–$58.7M after Steam's cut $39.7M–$90.3M before Steam's cut	$24.99	76k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	2.5DPuzzle-Platformer