How much revenue did Thief Simulator make?

$6.7M–$17.9M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Thief Simulator sell?

Q: How many copies did Thief Simulator sell?

1.2M to 2.0M copies, based on its 40k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 1.2M–2.0M; $6.7M–$17.9M after Steam's cut $12.1M–$27.6M before Steam's cut; from 40k reviews (Very 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 Thief Simulator and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Thief Simulator's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 3.5M–6.0M

best case 56.0M (PAYDAY 2)

Games like Thief Simulator

A typical game among these

≈ 3.5M–6.0M copies

≈ $21.2M–$49.3M after Steam's cut

from ~64k 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 Open World (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: PAYDAY 2 at ≈ 42.7M–69.3M copies, ≈ $117.2M–$315.1M after Steam's cut. It is a breakout hit, far above a typical game.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Open World (4 of 8) and Stealth (4 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with FPS + Stealth, priced around $10. The breakout hits carry FPS + Multiplayer + Stealth; a typical game here doesn't.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2011 to 2017, 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 43 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
PAYDAY 2 2013	Est. copies ≈ 42.7M–69.3M 11x vs typical SteamSpy 20M–50M	Est. revenue $117.2M–$315.1M after Steam's cut $213.1M–$484.7M before Steam's cut	$9.99	675k reviews Very Positive	Co-opAction
theHunter: Call of the Wild™ 2017	Est. copies ≈ 7.0M–11.4M 3.2x vs typical SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue Free	Free	203k reviews Very Positive	HuntingOpen World
This War of Mine 2014	Est. copies ≈ 5.5M–8.9M 1.5x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $30.1M–$81.0M after Steam's cut $54.8M–$124.6M before Steam's cut	$19.99	98k reviews Very Positive	SurvivalWar
Assassin's Creed® Unity 2014	Est. copies ≈ 4.8M–7.8M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $39.7M–$106.8M after Steam's cut $72.2M–$164.3M before Steam's cut	$29.99	86k reviews Mostly Positive	Open WorldParkour
Rain World 2017	Est. copies ≈ 2.0M–3.2M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $13.6M–$36.7M after Steam's cut $24.8M–$56.4M before Steam's cut	$24.99	58k reviews Very Positive	DifficultAtmospheric
Goat Simulator 2014	Est. copies ≈ 3.9M–6.4M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $10.8M–$29.1M after Steam's cut $19.7M–$44.7M before Steam's cut	$9.99	70k reviews Very Positive	SimulationFunny
PAYDAY™ The Heist 2011	Est. copies ≈ 2.6M–4.2M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $7.1M–$19.1M after Steam's cut $12.9M–$29.5M before Steam's cut	$9.99	41k reviews Very Positive	FPSAction
Watch_Dogs™ 2014	Est. copies ≈ 3.0M–4.9M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $16.5M–$44.3M after Steam's cut $30.0M–$68.2M before Steam's cut	$19.99	54k reviews Mostly Positive	Open WorldHacking