How much revenue did Quake III Arena make?

$1.1M–$2.9M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Quake III Arena sell?

Q: How many copies did Quake III Arena sell?

258k to 420k copies, based on its 4k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 258k–420k; $1.1M–$2.9M after Steam's cut $1.9M–$4.4M before the cut; from 4k reviews (Overwhelmingly 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 Quake III Arena out and predicted the genre from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Quake III Arena's, is estimated from Steam reviews, not self-reported sales.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 788k–1.3M

best case 1.3M (Quake Champions)

Games like Quake III Arena

The middle of these games

≈ 788k–1.3M copies

≈ $3.6M–$7.2M after Steam's cut

from ~17k 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.

Best case: Quake Champions at ≈ 967k–1.6M copies.

What it took to get here

About half the games that made it here had over 6k reviews in their first month; the spread ran 4k to 33k.

The genre you'd be entering

Your set: Your set clusters on FPS (8 of 8) and Shooter (7 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Arena Shooter + Hero Shooter.
The era: The games you compared span 2007 to 2022, and none of them 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
Quake 2007	Est. copies ≈ 1.0M–1.7M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $2.8M–$7.6M after Steam's cut $5.1M–$11.7M before the cut	$9.99	16k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	FPSClassic
Quake II 2007	Est. copies ≈ 654k–1.1M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $1.8M–$4.8M after Steam's cut $3.3M–$7.4M before the cut	$9.99	10k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	FPSClassic
DUSK 2018	Est. copies ≈ 774k–1.3M 1.5x vs typical SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $4.3M–$11.4M after Steam's cut $7.7M–$17.6M before the cut	$19.99	25k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Boomer ShooterFPS
Prodeus 2022	Est. copies ≈ 203k–330k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $1.4M–$3.8M after Steam's cut $2.5M–$5.8M before the cut	$24.99	8k reviews Very Positive	Boomer ShooterFPS
Fistful of Frags 2014	Est. copies ≈ 2.1M–3.4M 2.2x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue Free	Free	37k reviews Very Positive	PvPArena Shooter
Quake Live 2014	Est. copies ≈ 889k–1.4M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $2.4M–$6.6M after Steam's cut $4.4M–$10.1M before the cut	$9.99	16k reviews Very Positive	FPSArena Shooter
Quake Champions 2022	Est. copies ≈ 967k–1.6M 2.3x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue Free	Free	39k reviews Mostly Positive	Arena ShooterHero Shooter
Serious Sam 4 2020	Est. copies ≈ 438k–712k SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $4.8M–$13.0M after Steam's cut $8.8M–$19.9M before the cut	$39.99	18k reviews Very Positive	ActionGore