How much revenue did Nautical Life make?

$2k–$5k after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Nautical Life sell?

Q: How many copies did Nautical Life sell?

2k to 3k copies, based on its 58 Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 2k–3k; $2k–$5k after Steam's cut $4k–$8k before Steam's cut; from 58 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 Nautical Life and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Nautical Life's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 3.2M–18.9M

best case 57.1M (Stardew Valley)

Games like Nautical Life

A typical game among these

≈ 3.2M–18.9M copies

≈ $20.2M–$169.1M after Steam's cut

from ~129k 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 Fishing (3 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: Stardew Valley at ≈ 43.5M–70.7M copies, ≈ $179.4M–$482.4M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 43k reviews in their first month; the range was 19k to 558k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Fishing (3 of 8) and Open World (3 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Farming Sim + Life Sim, priced around $15.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2013 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 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
Stardew Valley 2016	Est. copies ≈ 43.5M–70.7M 8.1x vs typical SteamSpy 20M–50M	Est. revenue $179.4M–$482.4M after Steam's cut $326.2M–$742.1M before Steam's cut	$14.99	1.0M reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Farming SimPixel Graphics
WEBFISHING 2024	Est. copies ≈ 1.7M–2.8M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $2.4M–$6.4M after Steam's cut $4.4M–$9.9M before Steam's cut	$4.99	70k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	FishingMultiplayer
Valheim 2026	Est. copies ≈ 13.9M–22.6M 4.4x vs typical SteamSpy 10M–20M	Est. revenue $114.9M–$308.9M after Steam's cut $208.9M–$475.2M before Steam's cut	$29.99	562k reviews Very Positive	Open World Survival CraftSurvival
DAVE THE DIVER 2023	Est. copies ≈ 4.0M–6.6M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $22.2M–$59.8M after Steam's cut $40.4M–$91.9M before Steam's cut	$19.99	163k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Pixel GraphicsCasual
Fishing Planet 2017	Est. copies ≈ 2.7M–4.3M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue Free	Free	78k reviews Very Positive	FishingFree to Play
Path of Exile 2013	Est. copies ≈ 15.8M–25.7M 1.9x vs typical SteamSpy 20M–50M	Est. revenue Free	Free	250k reviews Very Positive	Free to PlayDark Fantasy
FINAL FANTASY XV WINDOWS EDITION 2018	Est. copies ≈ 1.8M–2.9M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $17.0M–$45.8M after Steam's cut $31.0M–$70.5M before Steam's cut	$34.99	58k reviews Very Positive	RPGOpen World
Black Desert 2017	Est. copies ≈ 3.2M–5.3M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $8.9M–$24.0M after Steam's cut $16.2M–$36.9M before Steam's cut	$9.99	94k reviews Mostly Positive	MMORPGMassively Multiplayer