How much revenue did Darkwater make?

$81k–$218k after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Darkwater sell?

Q: How many copies did Darkwater sell?

29k to 48k copies, based on its 1k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 29k–48k; $81k–$218k after Steam's cut $147k–$335k before Steam's cut; from 1k 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 Darkwater and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Darkwater's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 27.3M–51.1M

best case 125.7M (PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS)

Games like Darkwater

A typical game among these

≈ 27.3M–51.1M copies

≈ $138.9M–$256.7M after Steam's cut

from ~683k reviews

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

5 of the 8 similar games are hits.

Best case: PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS at ≈ 95.8M–155.7M copies.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 130 reviews in their first month; the range was 4 to 43k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Survival (7 of 8) and Horror (5 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Survival + Shooter.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2016 to 2026, 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
The Forest 2018	Est. copies ≈ 20.8M–33.7M 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
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS 2017	Est. copies ≈ 95.8M–155.7M 4.1x vs typical SteamSpy 100M–200M	Est. revenue Free	Free	2.8M reviews Mixed	SurvivalShooter
Barotrauma 2023	Est. copies ≈ 2.2M–3.6M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $21.5M–$57.8M after Steam's cut $39.1M–$88.9M before Steam's cut	$34.99	90k reviews Very Positive	Co-opMultiplayer
Dead by Daylight 2016	Est. copies ≈ 39.0M–63.3M SteamSpy 20M–50M	Est. revenue $214.2M–$575.9M after Steam's cut $389.4M–$886.0M before Steam's cut	$19.99	937k reviews Mostly Positive	HorrorMultiplayer
Don't Starve Together 2016	Est. copies ≈ 22.6M–36.8M SteamSpy 10M–20M	Est. revenue $93.2M–$250.7M after Steam's cut $169.5M–$385.7M before Steam's cut	$14.99	544k reviews Very Positive	SurvivalOpen World Survival Craft
Subterene 2021	Est. copies ≈ 198–322 too small to compare SteamSpy under 20k	Est. revenue $54–$145 after Steam's cut $98–$223 before Steam's cut	$0.99	8 reviews 8 user reviews	AdventureSimulation
INFLUXIS 2026	Est. copies ≈ 6k–10k too small to compare SteamSpy 20k–50k	Est. revenue Free	Free	257 reviews Mixed	Early AccessOpen World
Sunken Veins 2025	Est. copies ≈ 620–1k too small to compare SteamSpy under 20k	Est. revenue Free	Free	25 reviews Positive	Early AccessResource Management