How many copies did Protoball sell?

3k to 5k copies, based on its 122 Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

How much revenue did Protoball make?

Protoball is free to play, so there is no copy-sales revenue to estimate.

How big is Protoball?

Estimated players who have it: ≈ 3k–5k; from 122 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 Protoball and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Protoball's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 2.8M–3.6M

best case 12.2M (VRChat)

Games like Protoball

A typical game among these

≈ 2.8M–3.6M copies

≈ $24.4M–$37.1M after Steam's cut

from ~81k 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 Sports (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: VRChat at ≈ 9.3M–15.1M 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 18k reviews in their first month; the range was 14k to 26k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Sports (4 of 8) and VR (4 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with VR, priced around $20. The breakout hits carry VR + Anime + Memes; a typical game here doesn't.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2014 to 2023, and none of them 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

Game	Est. copies	Est. revenue	Price	Reviews	Tags
VRChat 2017	Est. copies ≈ 9.3M–15.1M 3.3x vs typical SteamSpy 20M–50M	Est. revenue Free	Free	269k reviews Mostly Positive	VRFree to Play
Rec Room 2021	Est. copies ≈ 2.1M–3.4M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue Free	Free	84k reviews Very Positive	Free to PlayVR
Beat Saber 2019	Est. copies ≈ 2.2M–3.6M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $12.1M–$32.5M after Steam's cut $22.0M–$50.0M before Steam's cut	$19.99	76k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	VRRhythm
CarX Drift Racing Online 2017	Est. copies ≈ 3.1M–5.0M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $14.4M–$38.6M after Steam's cut $26.1M–$59.4M before Steam's cut	$16.99	89k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	RacingPhysics
Golf With Your Friends 2020	Est. copies ≈ 1.9M–3.1M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $25.9M–$69.5M after Steam's cut $47.0M–$107.0M before Steam's cut	$49.99	76k reviews Very Positive	MultiplayerCasual
Fishing Planet 2017	Est. copies ≈ 2.7M–4.3M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue Free	Free	78k reviews Very Positive	FishingFree to Play
Assetto Corsa 2014	Est. copies ≈ 9.8M–15.9M 2.2x vs typical SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $53.8M–$144.6M after Steam's cut $97.8M–$222.5M before Steam's cut	$19.99	175k reviews Very Positive	RacingAutomobile Sim
EA SPORTS FC™ 24 2023	Est. copies ≈ 2.8M–4.5M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue Free	Free	111k reviews Mixed	Football (Soccer)Sports