How much revenue did The Use of Life make?

$111k–$299k after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did The Use of Life sell?

Q: How many copies did The Use of Life sell?

20k to 33k copies, based on its 815 Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 20k–33k; $111k–$299k after Steam's cut $202k–$460k before the cut; from 815 reviews (Very Positive)

A labeled estimate from the public review count (adjusted for release year), not exact sales. Owner data cross-checked with SteamSpy.

Does this actually work?

We left The Use of Life out and predicted the genre from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including The Use of Life's, is estimated from Steam reviews, not self-reported sales.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 66k–108k

best case 1.5M (Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader)

Games like The Use of Life

The middle of these games

≈ 66k–108k copies

≈ $484k–$959k after Steam's cut

from ~2k reviews

Only the top fifth of 2019’s Steam releases earned about $34k gross, so plan for that or less.

All 8 of your similar games are hits.

No genre covers most of your similar games. The closest is Choices Matter (3 of 8), so the genre you lead with is still undecided.

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: Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader at ≈ 1.2M–1.9M copies, ≈ $16.2M–$43.6M after Steam's cut. A breakout hit, far above a typical game.

What it took to get here

About half the games that made it here had over 1k reviews in their first month; the spread ran 473 to 10k.

The genre you'd be entering

Your set: Your set clusters on Choices Matter (3 of 8) and Dark Fantasy (3 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Action RPG + Third Person, priced around $20. The breakout hits carry Singleplayer; a typical game here doesn't.
The era: The games you compared span 2015 to 2024, and 1 of your 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 61 for the oldest, then widened into a range; revenue rides on that estimate times price. Source: GameDiscoverCo (2020) and VG Insights (2021).

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Vagrus - The Riven Realms 2021	Est. copies ≈ 46k–75k SteamSpy 100k–200k	Est. revenue $379k–$1.0M after Steam's cut $689k–$1.6M before the cut	$29.99	2k reviews Very Positive	Story RichOpen World
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader 2023	Est. copies ≈ 1.2M–1.9M 22x vs typical SteamSpy 10M–20M	Est. revenue $16.2M–$43.6M after Steam's cut $29.5M–$67.0M before the cut	$49.99	48k reviews Very Positive	Character CustomizationCinematic
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Shadows Over Loathing 2022	Est. copies ≈ 82k–134k 1.6x vs typical SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $520k–$1.4M after Steam's cut $945k–$2.2M before the cut	$22.99	3k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	AdventureRPG
Crisis in the Kremlin 2017	Est. copies ≈ 50k–82k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $69k–$186k after Steam's cut $126k–$286k before the cut	$4.99	1k reviews Very Positive	Political SimStrategy
The Nameless: Slay Dragon 2024	Est. copies ≈ 53k–86k SteamSpy 50k–100k	Est. revenue $262k–$705k after Steam's cut $477k–$1.1M before the cut	$17.99	2k reviews Very Positive	RPGAdventure
The Age of Decadence 2015	Est. copies ≈ 197k–321k 1.9x vs typical SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $813k–$2.2M after Steam's cut $1.5M–$3.4M before the cut	$14.99	4k reviews Very Positive	Turn-Based CombatChoices Matter