How much revenue did Game Dev Story make?

$92k–$247k after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Game Dev Story sell?

Q: How many copies did Game Dev Story sell?

37k to 60k copies, based on its 1k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 37k–60k; $92k–$247k after Steam's cut $167k–$379k before the cut; from 1k 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 Game Dev Story out and predicted the genre from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Game Dev Story's, is estimated from Steam reviews, not self-reported sales.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 393k–923k

best case 1.2M (Against the Storm)

Games like Game Dev Story

The middle of these games

≈ 393k–923k copies

≈ $3.1M–$7.8M after Steam's cut

from ~15k 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 4X (4 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: Against the Storm at ≈ 926k–1.5M copies, ≈ $7.6M–$20.5M after Steam's cut.

What it took to get here

About half the games that made it here had over 8k reviews in their first month; the spread ran 744 to 22k.

The genre you'd be entering

Your set: Your set clusters on 4X (4 of 8) and Building (4 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with City Builder + Simulation, priced around $30.
The era: The games you compared span 2013 to 2026, and 2 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 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
Stronghold Crusader HD (2012) 2013	Est. copies ≈ 1.3M–2.2M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $3.7M–$9.8M after Steam's cut $6.6M–$15.1M before the cut	$9.99	21k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	MilitaryCity Builder
shapez 2020	Est. copies ≈ 393k–638k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $1.1M–$2.9M after Steam's cut $2.0M–$4.5M before the cut	$9.99	16k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	AutomationBase-Building
Airships: Conquer the Skies 2018	Est. copies ≈ 201k–326k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $1.4M–$3.7M after Steam's cut $2.5M–$5.7M before the cut	$24.99	7k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Vehicular Combat4X
Terra Invicta 2026	Est. copies ≈ 243k–395k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $2.7M–$7.2M after Steam's cut $4.9M–$11.1M before the cut	$39.99	10k reviews Very Positive	StrategySimulation
Farthest Frontier 2025	Est. copies ≈ 630k–1.0M 1.7x vs typical SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $6.1M–$16.3M after Steam's cut $11.0M–$25.1M before the cut	$34.99	25k reviews Very Positive	Early AccessHistorical
Cosmoteer: Starship Architect & Commander 2022	Est. copies ≈ 318k–517k SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $1.7M–$4.7M after Steam's cut $3.2M–$7.2M before the cut	$19.99	13k reviews Very Positive	Sci-fiSingleplayer
Dune: Spice Wars 2023	Est. copies ≈ 336k–546k SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $3.2M–$8.7M after Steam's cut $5.9M–$13.4M before the cut	$34.99	14k reviews Mostly Positive	ManagementSingleplayer
Against the Storm 2023	Est. copies ≈ 926k–1.5M 2.5x vs typical SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $7.6M–$20.5M after Steam's cut $13.9M–$31.6M before the cut	$29.99	37k reviews Very Positive	StrategyCity Builder