How much revenue did NBA 2K18 make?

NBA 2K18 is free to play, so there is no copy-sales revenue to estimate.

How many copies did NBA 2K18 sell?

Q: How many copies did NBA 2K18 sell?

464k to 755k copies, based on its 19k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 464k–755k; from 19k reviews (Mostly Negative)

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 NBA 2K18 and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including NBA 2K18's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 1.4M–1.7M

best case 2.3M (NBA 2K20)

Games like NBA 2K18

A typical game among these

≈ 1.4M–1.7M copies

≈ $37.8M after Steam's cut

from ~44k reviews

Only the top fifth of 2019's Steam releases earned $34k or more before Steam's cut, so plan for that or less.

6 of the 8 similar games are hits.

Best case: NBA 2K20 at ≈ 1.7M–2.8M copies.

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 183 to 9k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Basketball (7 of 8) and Sports (7 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Basketball + Sports.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2016 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 52 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
NBA 2K20 2019	Est. copies ≈ 1.7M–2.8M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue Free	Free	60k reviews Mixed	BasketballSports
I Can't Believe It's Not Gambling 2(K) 2019	Est. copies ≈ 2k–4k too small to compare SteamSpy 20k–50k	Est. revenue $1k–$3k after Steam's cut $2k–$5k before Steam's cut	$1.99	78 reviews Mixed	CollectathonLoot
3dSen VR 2025	Est. copies ≈ 5k–8k too small to compare SteamSpy under 20k	Est. revenue $36k–$96k after Steam's cut $65k–$147k before Steam's cut	$24.99	209 reviews Very Positive	Early AccessAction
NBA 2K24 2023	Est. copies ≈ 1.1M–1.8M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue Free	Free	44k reviews Mostly Negative	SportsBasketball
NBA 2K22 2021	Est. copies ≈ 964k–1.6M SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue Free	Free	39k reviews Mixed	SportsBasketball
NBA 2K25 2024	Est. copies ≈ 1.1M–1.7M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $20.5M–$55.1M after Steam's cut $37.3M–$84.8M before Steam's cut	$69.99	43k reviews Mixed	SportsBasketball
NBA 2K23 2022	Est. copies ≈ 1.3M–2.1M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue Free	Free	51k reviews Mixed	Immersive SimBasketball
NBA 2K17 2016	Est. copies ≈ 365k–594k too small to compare SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue Free	Free	9k reviews Mixed	BasketballSports