How much revenue did LISA: The Painful make?

$4.7M–$12.6M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did LISA: The Painful sell?

Q: How many copies did LISA: The Painful sell?

851k to 1.4M copies, based on its 15k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 851k–1.4M; $4.7M–$12.6M after Steam's cut $8.5M–$19.4M before Steam's cut; from 15k 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 LISA: The Painful and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including LISA: The Painful's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 1.6M–2.6M

best case 5.4M (South Park™: The Stick of Truth™)

Games like LISA: The Painful

A typical game among these

≈ 1.6M–2.6M copies

≈ $13.3M–$25.4M after Steam's cut

from ~40k 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 Comedy (3 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: South Park™: The Stick of Truth™ at ≈ 4.1M–6.7M copies, ≈ $34.0M–$91.4M after Steam's cut.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Comedy (3 of 8) and Choices Matter (2 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Comedy + Turn-Based, priced around $30.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2008 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 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
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader 2023	Est. copies ≈ 1.2M–2.0M SteamSpy 10M–20M	Est. revenue $16.5M–$44.4M after Steam's cut $30.0M–$68.3M before Steam's cut	$49.99	48k reviews Very Positive	Character CustomizationCinematic
South Park™: The Fractured But Whole™ 2017	Est. copies ≈ 1.2M–1.9M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $9.6M–$25.7M after Steam's cut $17.4M–$39.5M before Steam's cut	$29.99	34k reviews Very Positive	RPGComedy
Slay the Princess — The Pristine Cut 2023	Est. copies ≈ 856k–1.4M SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $4.2M–$11.4M after Steam's cut $7.7M–$17.5M before Steam's cut	$17.99	35k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Visual NovelChoices Matter
Graveyard Keeper 2018	Est. copies ≈ 1.7M–2.8M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $9.4M–$25.2M after Steam's cut $17.1M–$38.8M before Steam's cut	$19.99	56k reviews Very Positive	Pixel GraphicsCrafting
Bully: Scholarship Edition 2008	Est. copies ≈ 2.7M–4.3M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $11.0M–$29.6M after Steam's cut $20.0M–$45.6M before Steam's cut	$14.99	42k reviews Very Positive	Open WorldAction
Beholder 2016	Est. copies ≈ 1.3M–2.1M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $5.0M–$13.4M after Steam's cut $9.1M–$20.6M before Steam's cut	$13.99	31k reviews Very Positive	Dystopian Choices Matter
South Park™: The Stick of Truth™ 2014	Est. copies ≈ 4.1M–6.7M 1.9x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $34.0M–$91.4M after Steam's cut $61.8M–$140.6M before Steam's cut	$29.99	74k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	RPGComedy
Shakes and Fidget 2016	Est. copies ≈ 1.5M–2.5M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue Free	Free	37k reviews Very Positive	Free to PlayRPG