How much revenue did Observation make?

$890k–$2.4M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Observation sell?

Q: How many copies did Observation sell?

130k to 210k copies, based on its 5k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 130k–210k; $890k–$2.4M after Steam's cut $1.6M–$3.7M before Steam's cut; from 5k 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 Observation and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Observation's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 8.5M–17.2M

best case 35.2M (ARK: Survival Evolved)

Games like Observation

A typical game among these

≈ 8.5M–17.2M copies

≈ $104.1M–$189.9M after Steam's cut

from ~330k 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 Crafting (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: ARK: Survival Evolved at ≈ 26.8M–43.5M copies, ≈ $110.4M–$296.8M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 69k reviews in their first month; the range was 40k to 184k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Crafting (4 of 8) and Exploration (4 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Open World Survival Craft + Survival, priced around $15.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2016 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 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
SCP: Secret Laboratory 2017	Est. copies ≈ 8.1M–13.1M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue Free	Free	235k reviews Very Positive	Free to PlayMultiplayer
No Man's Sky 2016	Est. copies ≈ 17.5M–28.5M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $289.3M–$777.8M after Steam's cut $526.0M–$1196.6M before Steam's cut	$59.99	422k reviews Very Positive	Open WorldOpen World Survival Craft
Satisfactory 2024	Est. copies ≈ 6.9M–11.3M SteamSpy 10M–20M	Est. revenue $76.3M–$205.2M after Steam's cut $138.8M–$315.7M before Steam's cut	$39.99	280k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Base-BuildingAutomation
ARK: Survival Evolved 2017	Est. copies ≈ 26.8M–43.5M 2.4x vs typical SteamSpy 20M–50M	Est. revenue $110.4M–$296.8M after Steam's cut $200.7M–$456.6M before Steam's cut	$14.99	779k reviews Very Positive	Open World Survival CraftSurvival
Stray 2022	Est. copies ≈ 4.4M–7.2M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $36.6M–$98.3M after Steam's cut $66.5M–$151.3M before Steam's cut	$29.99	179k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	CatsAdventure
Deep Rock Galactic 2020	Est. copies ≈ 9.4M–15.3M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $77.8M–$209.2M after Steam's cut $141.5M–$321.9M before Steam's cut	$29.99	380k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	DwarfCo-op
Subnautica 2018	Est. copies ≈ 11.6M–18.8M SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $95.5M–$256.7M after Steam's cut $173.6M–$395.0M before Steam's cut	$29.99	381k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Open World Survival CraftSurvival
Starbound 2016	Est. copies ≈ 5.1M–8.3M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $21.1M–$56.9M after Steam's cut $38.4M–$87.5M before Steam's cut	$14.99	123k reviews Very Positive	Open World Survival CraftSandbox