How much revenue did ELEX make?

$5.6M–$15.0M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did ELEX sell?

Q: How many copies did ELEX sell?

675k to 1.1M copies, based on its 20k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 675k–1.1M; $5.6M–$15.0M after Steam's cut $10.1M–$23.0M before Steam's cut; from 20k 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 ELEX and predicted how it would do from its 7 similar games. Every figure here, including ELEX's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 4.4M–13.8M

best case 27.5M (Fallout 4)

Games like ELEX

A typical game among these

≈ 4.4M–13.8M copies

≈ $38.2M–$101.0M after Steam's cut

from ~128k 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 7 of the similar games are hits.

Best case: Fallout 4 at ≈ 21.0M–34.1M copies, ≈ $115.2M–$309.7M after Steam's cut.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Open World (7 of 7) and Post-apocalyptic (7 of 7).
The winners: Winners here lead with Open World + Post-apocalyptic, priced around $20.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2007 to 2024, and 1 of the 7 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
Fallout 4 2015	Est. copies ≈ 21.0M–34.1M 3.3x vs typical SteamSpy 10M–20M	Est. revenue $115.2M–$309.7M after Steam's cut $209.4M–$476.5M before Steam's cut	$19.99	429k reviews Very Positive	Open WorldPost-apocalyptic
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl 2024	Est. copies ≈ 3.5M–5.7M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $57.8M–$155.4M after Steam's cut $105.1M–$239.2M before Steam's cut	$59.99	141k reviews Very Positive	Open WorldFPS
Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition 2009	Est. copies ≈ 3.6M–5.8M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $19.5M–$52.5M after Steam's cut $35.5M–$80.8M before Steam's cut	$19.99	56k reviews Very Positive	Open WorldRPG
Mad Max 2015	Est. copies ≈ 4.4M–7.2M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $24.3M–$65.4M after Steam's cut $44.2M–$100.6M before Steam's cut	$19.99	91k reviews Very Positive	Open WorldVehicular Combat
Fallout: New Vegas 2010	Est. copies ≈ 16.6M–26.9M 2.0x vs typical SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $45.5M–$122.3M after Steam's cut $82.7M–$188.2M before Steam's cut	$9.99	262k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Open WorldRPG
Horizon Zero Dawn™ Complete Edition 2020	Est. copies ≈ 3.2M–5.2M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue Free	Free	128k reviews Very Positive	Open WorldAdventure
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl 2007	Est. copies ≈ 3.0M–4.9M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $16.7M–$45.0M after Steam's cut $30.4M–$69.2M before Steam's cut	$19.99	48k reviews Very Positive	AtmosphericPost-apocalyptic