How much revenue did The Ascent make?

$5.1M–$13.7M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did The Ascent sell?

Q: How many copies did The Ascent sell?

619k to 1.0M copies, based on its 25k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 619k–1.0M; $5.1M–$13.7M after Steam's cut $9.3M–$21.1M before Steam's cut; from 25k 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 The Ascent and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including The Ascent's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 27k–131k

best case 507k (Yet Another Zombie Survivors)

Games like The Ascent

A typical game among these

≈ 27k–131k copies

≈ $113k–$655k after Steam's cut

from ~1k reviews

Only the top fifth of 2019's Steam releases earned $34k or more before Steam's cut, so plan for that or less.

5 of the 8 similar games are hits.

No genre covers most of these similar games. The closest is Top-Down Shooter (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: Yet Another Zombie Survivors at ≈ 386k–628k copies, ≈ $1.6M–$4.3M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 685 reviews in their first month; the range was 305 to 15k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Top-Down Shooter (4 of 8) and Action RPG (3 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Action Roguelike + Bullet Hell, priced around $15.
When they shipped: 4 of the 8 similar games shipped in the last two years, so this genre is actively shipping.

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
Deadeye Deepfake Simulacrum 2025	Est. copies ≈ 22k–36k SteamSpy 20k–50k	Est. revenue $78k–$210k after Steam's cut $142k–$323k before Steam's cut	$12.99	881 reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Early AccessTop-Down Shooter
Neon Chrome 2016	Est. copies ≈ 49k–80k SteamSpy 20k–50k	Est. revenue $203k–$545k after Steam's cut $368k–$838k before Steam's cut	$14.99	1k reviews Very Positive	CyberpunkTwin Stick Shooter
3030 Deathwar Redux - A Space Odyssey 2017	Est. copies ≈ 40k–65k SteamSpy 100k–200k	Est. revenue $166k–$445k after Steam's cut $301k–$685k before Steam's cut	$14.99	1k reviews Very Positive	AdventureIndie
Death Trash 2021	Est. copies ≈ 92k–150k 3.2x vs typical SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $508k–$1.4M after Steam's cut $924k–$2.1M before Steam's cut	$19.99	4k reviews Very Positive	Early AccessPost-apocalyptic
Bioweaver 2024	Est. copies ≈ 17k–28k SteamSpy 20k–50k	Est. revenue $33k–$89k after Steam's cut $60k–$137k before Steam's cut	$6.99	696 reviews Mostly Positive	ProgrammingTactical RPG
Skillshot City 2017	Est. copies ≈ 123k–201k 3.1x vs typical SteamSpy under 20k	Est. revenue Free	Free	4k reviews Very Positive	Battle RoyaleRogue-lite
CyberCorp 2025	Est. copies ≈ 11k–18k SteamSpy 10M–20M	Est. revenue $45k–$121k after Steam's cut $82k–$186k before Steam's cut	$14.99	439 reviews Mostly Positive	Top-Down ShooterTwin Stick Shooter
Yet Another Zombie Survivors 2026	Est. copies ≈ 386k–628k 13x vs typical SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $1.6M–$4.3M after Steam's cut $2.9M–$6.6M before Steam's cut	$14.99	16k reviews Very Positive	Early AccessAction Roguelike