How much revenue did Portal make?

$34.5M–$92.6M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Portal sell?

Q: How many copies did Portal sell?

12.5M to 20.4M copies, based on its 198k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 12.5M–20.4M; $34.5M–$92.6M after Steam's cut $62.6M–$142.5M before the cut; from 198k 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 Portal out and predicted the genre from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Portal's, is estimated from Steam reviews, not self-reported sales.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 605k–1.1M

best case 38.6M (Portal 2)

Games like Portal

The middle of these games

≈ 605k–1.1M copies

≈ $2.0M–$4.9M 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: Portal 2 at ≈ 29.4M–47.8M copies, ≈ $80.8M–$217.4M 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 6k reviews in their first month; the spread ran 3k to 38k.

The genre you'd be entering

Your set: Your set clusters on First-Person (6 of 8) and Puzzle (5 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with First-Person, priced around $20. The breakout hits carry Dark Humor + Funny + Female Protagonist; a typical game here doesn't.
The era: The games you compared span 2011 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 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
Murders on the Yangtze River 2024	Est. copies ≈ 525k–853k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $2.2M–$5.8M after Steam's cut $3.9M–$8.9M before the cut	$14.99	21k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	DetectiveAdventure
Portal 2 2011	Est. copies ≈ 29.4M–47.8M 28x vs typical SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue $80.8M–$217.4M after Steam's cut $147.0M–$334.4M before the cut	$9.99	466k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Platformer Puzzle
Teardown 2022	Est. copies ≈ 3.4M–5.5M 8.0x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $27.7M–$74.5M after Steam's cut $50.4M–$114.7M before the cut	$29.99	136k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	DestructionPhysics
Refunct 2015	Est. copies ≈ 852k–1.4M SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $701k–$1.9M after Steam's cut $1.3M–$2.9M before the cut	$2.99	17k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Parkour3D Platformer
The Talos Principle 2 2023	Est. copies ≈ 331k–538k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $2.7M–$7.3M after Steam's cut $5.0M–$11.3M before the cut	$29.99	13k reviews Very Positive	Puzzle Story Rich
Superliminal 2020	Est. copies ≈ 843k–1.4M 2.0x vs typical SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $4.6M–$12.5M after Steam's cut $8.4M–$19.2M before the cut	$19.99	34k reviews Very Positive	PuzzleFirst-Person
Mountain 2014	Est. copies ≈ 912k–1.5M SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $248k–$668k after Steam's cut $452k–$1.0M before the cut	$0.99	16k reviews Very Positive	SimulationIndie
Supraland 2019	Est. copies ≈ 440k–714k SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $2.4M–$6.5M after Steam's cut $4.4M–$10.0M before the cut	$19.99	15k reviews Overwhelmingly Positive	Puzzle-PlatformerExploration