How much revenue did Pony Island make?

$1.0M–$2.8M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Pony Island sell?

Q: How many copies did Pony Island sell?

755k to 1.2M copies, based on its 18k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 755k–1.2M; $1.0M–$2.8M after Steam's cut $1.9M–$4.3M before Steam's cut; from 18k reviews (Very 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 Pony Island and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Pony Island's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 3.8M–4.7M

best case 4.6M (Poppy Playtime)

Games like Pony Island

A typical game among these

≈ 3.8M–4.7M copies

≈ $5.9M–$31.1M after Steam's cut

from ~117k 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 Puzzle (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: Poppy Playtime at ≈ 3.5M–5.7M copies.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 16k reviews in their first month; the range was 4k to 84k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Puzzle (4 of 8) and Dark (3 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Horror + Puzzle.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2017 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 43 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
Little Nightmares 2017	Est. copies ≈ 4.0M–6.5M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $22.1M–$59.3M after Steam's cut $40.1M–$91.3M before Steam's cut	$19.99	117k reviews Very Positive	HorrorAtmospheric
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
Outer Wilds 2020	Est. copies ≈ 2.7M–4.4M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $18.5M–$49.7M after Steam's cut $33.6M–$76.4M before Steam's cut	$24.99	108k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	ExplorationSpace
My Summer Car 2025	Est. copies ≈ 2.9M–4.8M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $12.1M–$32.4M after Steam's cut $21.9M–$49.9M before Steam's cut	$14.99	118k reviews Very Positive	Automobile SimSimulation
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
Helltaker 2020	Est. copies ≈ 3.2M–5.2M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue Free	Free	128k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Free to PlayCute
Buckshot Roulette 2024	Est. copies ≈ 3.1M–5.1M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $2.6M–$6.9M after Steam's cut $4.7M–$10.7M before Steam's cut	$2.99	127k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	MultiplayerDark
Poppy Playtime 2021	Est. copies ≈ 3.5M–5.7M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue Free	Free	143k reviews Very Positive	HorrorFree to Play