How much revenue did Portal make?

$34.6M–$93.1M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Portal sell?

Q: How many copies did Portal sell?

12.6M to 20.5M copies, based on its 199k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 12.6M–20.5M; $34.6M–$93.1M after Steam's cut $63.0M–$143.3M before Steam's cut; from 199k 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 Portal and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Portal's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 613k–1.1M

best case 38.8M (Portal 2)

Games like Portal

A typical game among these

≈ 613k–1.1M copies

≈ $2.0M–$4.9M after Steam's cut

from ~17k 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.

Best case: Portal 2 at ≈ 29.5M–48.0M copies, ≈ $81.1M–$218.1M after Steam's cut. It is a breakout hit, far above a typical game.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 6k reviews in their first month; the range was 3k to 38k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share First-Person (6 of 8) and Puzzle (5 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with First-Person, priced around $20. The breakout hits carry Dark Humor + Funny + Female Protagonist; a typical game here doesn't.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2011 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 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
Murders on the Yangtze River 2024	Est. copies ≈ 528k–858k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $2.2M–$5.9M after Steam's cut $4.0M–$9.0M before Steam's cut	$14.99	21k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	DetectiveAdventure
Portal 2 2011	Est. copies ≈ 29.5M–48.0M 28x vs typical SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $81.1M–$218.1M after Steam's cut $147.5M–$335.6M before Steam's cut	$9.99	467k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Platformer Puzzle
Teardown 2022	Est. copies ≈ 3.4M–5.5M 8.1x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $27.9M–$75.0M after Steam's cut $50.7M–$115.4M before Steam's cut	$29.99	136k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	DestructionPhysics
Refunct 2015	Est. copies ≈ 852k–1.4M SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $701k–$1.9M after Steam's cut $1.3M–$2.9M before Steam's cut	$2.99	17k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Parkour3D Platformer
The Talos Principle 2 2023	Est. copies ≈ 333k–541k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $2.7M–$7.4M after Steam's cut $5.0M–$11.4M before Steam's cut	$29.99	13k reviews Very Positive	Puzzle Story Rich
Superliminal 2020	Est. copies ≈ 848k–1.4M 2.0x vs typical SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $4.7M–$12.5M after Steam's cut $8.5M–$19.3M before Steam's cut	$19.99	34k reviews Very Positive	PuzzleFirst-Person
Mountain 2014	Est. copies ≈ 912k–1.5M SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $248k–$668k after Steam's cut $452k–$1.0M before Steam's cut	$0.99	16k reviews Very Positive	SimulationIndie
Supraland 2019	Est. copies ≈ 446k–725k SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $2.5M–$6.6M after Steam's cut $4.5M–$10.2M before Steam's cut	$19.99	16k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Puzzle-PlatformerExploration