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How big is Doki Doki Literature Club!?

Estimated players who have it
≈ 7.9M–12.8M
from 229k 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 Doki Doki Literature Club! and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Doki Doki Literature Club!'s, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 1.9M–2.9M
best case 4.2M (Helltaker)
Games like Doki Doki Literature Club!

A typical game among these

≈ 1.9M–2.9M copies

≈ $8.0M–$15.7M after Steam's cut

from ~58k 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 Anime (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: Helltaker at ≈ 3.2M–5.2M copies. 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 11k reviews in their first month; the range was 7k to 21k.
The genre you'd be entering
These games
The similar games share Anime (4 of 8) and Story Rich (4 of 8).
The winners
Winners here lead with Demons + Puzzle. The breakout hits carry Demons + Puzzle + Indie; a typical game here doesn't.
When they shipped
The similar games span 2014 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 70 for the oldest, then widened into a range; revenue rides on that estimate times price. Source: GameDiscoverCo (2020) and VG Insights (2021).

Similar games

Everlasting Summer
2014
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≈ 4.4M–7.1M
SteamSpy 500k–1M
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2022
Est. copies
≈ 1.4M–2.4M
SteamSpy 1M–2M
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$6.4M–$17.1M after Steam's cut $11.6M–$26.3M before Steam's cut
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Library Of Ruina
2021
Est. copies
≈ 1.1M–1.8M
SteamSpy 1M–2M
Est. revenue
$9.2M–$24.9M after Steam's cut $16.8M–$38.3M before Steam's cut
$29.99
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Story RichCard Game
UNO
2017
Est. copies
≈ 1.9M–3.0M
SteamSpy 2M–5M
Est. revenue
$5.1M–$13.8M after Steam's cut $9.3M–$21.2M before Steam's cut
$9.99
54k reviews
Mostly Positive
Card GameMultiplayer
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
2.2x vs typical
SteamSpy 2M–5M
Est. revenue
Free
Free
128k reviews
Overwhelmingly Positive
Free to PlayCute
Lobotomy Corporation | Monster Management Simulation
2018
Est. copies
≈ 1.7M–2.8M
SteamSpy 1M–2M
Est. revenue
$12.0M–$32.2M after Steam's cut $21.8M–$49.5M before Steam's cut
$24.99
57k reviews
Very Positive
ManagementDifficult
The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty
2024
Est. copies
≈ 1.5M–2.4M
SteamSpy 1M–2M
Est. revenue
$4.1M–$11.0M after Steam's cut $7.4M–$16.9M before Steam's cut
$9.99
60k reviews
Very Positive
Visual NovelHistorical

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