How much revenue did Thief Simulator make?

$6.6M–$17.8M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did Thief Simulator sell?

Q: How many copies did Thief Simulator sell?

1.2M to 2.0M copies, based on its 40k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 1.2M–2.0M; $6.6M–$17.8M after Steam's cut $12.0M–$27.4M before the cut; from 40k 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 Thief Simulator out and predicted the genre from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including Thief Simulator's, is estimated from Steam reviews, not self-reported sales.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 3.5M–6.0M

best case 55.9M (PAYDAY 2)

Games like Thief Simulator

The middle of these games

≈ 3.5M–6.0M copies

≈ $21.1M–$49.0M after Steam's cut

from ~63k 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 Open World (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: PAYDAY 2 at ≈ 42.6M–69.2M copies, ≈ $117.1M–$314.7M after Steam's cut. A breakout hit, far above a typical game.

The genre you'd be entering

Your set: Your set clusters on Open World (4 of 8) and Stealth (4 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with FPS + Stealth, priced around $10. The breakout hits carry FPS + Multiplayer + Stealth; a typical game here doesn't.
The era: The games you compared span 2011 to 2017, 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 43 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
PAYDAY 2 2013	Est. copies ≈ 42.6M–69.2M 11x vs typical SteamSpy 20M–50M	Est. revenue $117.1M–$314.7M after Steam's cut $212.8M–$484.2M before the cut	$9.99	674k reviews Very Positive	Co-opAction
theHunter: Call of the Wild™ 2017	Est. copies ≈ 7.0M–11.3M 3.2x vs typical SteamSpy 5M–10M	Est. revenue Free	Free	202k reviews Very Positive	HuntingOpen World
This War of Mine 2014	Est. copies ≈ 5.5M–8.9M 1.5x vs typical SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $30.0M–$80.8M after Steam's cut $54.6M–$124.3M before the cut	$19.99	98k reviews Very Positive	SurvivalWar
Assassin's Creed® Unity 2014	Est. copies ≈ 4.8M–7.8M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $39.5M–$106.1M after Steam's cut $71.8M–$163.2M before the cut	$29.99	85k reviews Mostly Positive	Open WorldParkour
Rain World 2017	Est. copies ≈ 1.9M–3.2M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $13.4M–$36.0M after Steam's cut $24.3M–$55.4M before the cut	$24.99	57k reviews Very Positive	DifficultAtmospheric
Goat Simulator 2014	Est. copies ≈ 3.9M–6.4M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $10.8M–$29.1M after Steam's cut $19.6M–$44.7M before the cut	$9.99	70k reviews Very Positive	SimulationFunny
PAYDAY™ The Heist 2011	Est. copies ≈ 2.6M–4.2M SteamSpy 2M–5M	Est. revenue $7.1M–$19.1M after Steam's cut $12.9M–$29.4M before the cut	$9.99	41k reviews Very Positive	FPSAction
Watch_Dogs™ 2014	Est. copies ≈ 2.9M–4.8M SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $16.1M–$43.4M after Steam's cut $29.4M–$66.8M before the cut	$19.99	52k reviews Mostly Positive	Open WorldHacking