How much revenue did LIGHTNING RETURNS™: FINAL FANTASY® XIII make?

$1.3M–$3.5M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did LIGHTNING RETURNS™: FINAL FANTASY® XIII sell?

Q: How many copies did LIGHTNING RETURNS™: FINAL FANTASY® XIII sell?

237k to 384k copies, based on its 5k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 237k–384k; $1.3M–$3.5M after Steam's cut $2.4M–$5.4M before Steam's cut; from 5k reviews (Mostly 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 LIGHTNING RETURNS™: FINAL FANTASY® XIII and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including LIGHTNING RETURNS™: FINAL FANTASY® XIII's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 2.5M–7.5M

best case 27.3M (The Forest)

Games like LIGHTNING RETURNS™: FINAL FANTASY® XIII

A typical game among these

≈ 2.5M–7.5M copies

≈ $22.9M–$124.4M after Steam's cut

from ~85k 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 Fantasy (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: The Forest at ≈ 20.8M–33.7M copies, ≈ $114.2M–$306.9M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 27k reviews in their first month; the range was 12k to 92k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Fantasy (4 of 8) and JRPG (4 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Open World Survival Craft + Survival, priced around $20.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2014 to 2025, and 2 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 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
NieR:Automata™ 2017	Est. copies ≈ 5.3M–8.6M 1.8x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $58.2M–$156.5M after Steam's cut $105.8M–$240.7M before Steam's cut	$39.99	154k reviews Very Positive	Great SoundtrackStory Rich
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 2025	Est. copies ≈ 6.9M–11.3M 3.3x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $95.2M–$256.1M after Steam's cut $173.2M–$394.0M before Steam's cut	$49.99	279k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Turn-Based CombatStory Rich
Volcano Princess 2023	Est. copies ≈ 1.2M–2.0M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $3.7M–$9.9M after Steam's cut $6.7M–$15.3M before Steam's cut	$10.99	49k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Life SimMultiple Endings
Granblue Fantasy: Relink 2024	Est. copies ≈ 1.4M–2.3M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $15.3M–$41.1M after Steam's cut $27.8M–$63.3M before Steam's cut	$39.99	56k reviews Very Positive	AnimeJRPG
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen 2016	Est. copies ≈ 2.0M–3.3M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $16.9M–$45.4M after Steam's cut $30.7M–$69.8M before Steam's cut	$29.99	49k reviews Very Positive	RPGOpen World
The Forest 2018	Est. copies ≈ 20.8M–33.7M 8.0x vs typical SteamSpy 20M–50M	Est. revenue $114.2M–$306.9M after Steam's cut $207.5M–$472.2M before Steam's cut	$19.99	683k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Open World Survival CraftSurvival
Mirror 2018	Est. copies ≈ 2.6M–4.1M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $1.4M–$3.8M after Steam's cut $2.5M–$5.8M before Steam's cut	$1.99	84k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Sexual ContentNudity
FINAL FANTASY XIV Online 2014	Est. copies ≈ 4.8M–7.8M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $26.4M–$71.0M after Steam's cut $48.0M–$109.3M before Steam's cut	$19.99	86k reviews Very Positive	MMORPGRPG