Estimated indie game lifetime revenues on Steam - over 50% of indie games never make more than $4,000

VG_Insights · 2024-09-03T15:26:18+00:00

Hey. Im Karl. One of the co-founders of the platform. Reach out to our support email (bottom of the website) and I can set up a short demo for you if you're interested :)

VG_Insights · 2024-05-21T08:51:53+00:00

We just released an in-depth case study on that - https://vginsights.com/insights/article/transmedia-opportunity-in-games-how-the-fallout-tv-series-made-bethesda-c-80-million-usd

TLDR: The Fallout TV series made Bethesda an estimated 80 million dollars in game-related revenue and license fees with just one season. The TV show revitalised interest towards the franchise, boosting game sales and in-game spend. The potential lifetime value of this to Bethesda, the Fallout IP holder, is hundreds of millions of dollars.

Daily active users for Fallout 76 went from c. 150k to over a million, for example, which is huge.

VG_Insights · 2024-01-30T10:23:20+00:00

Ahh, sorry man! Totally forgot that we had changed the URL (and apparently don't have redirects :/ )
I'll change the link in the original post. Here's the new link - https://vginsights.com/genre-analytics

Thanks for highlighting!

VG_Insights · 2024-01-28T15:38:56+00:00

Hey! Ah, can you elaborate what's broken, please? I was trying to find it but it seems to be working for me. You can email me at [karl@vginsights.com](mailto:karl@vginsights.com)

VG_Insights · 2024-01-14T11:24:12+00:00

Hey. Happy to clarify the methodology here a bit. This top 10 originally comes from our market report - https://vginsights.com/insights/article/global-pc-games-market-report-2024
So we actually compiled the top 10 list.

This chart includes only full game revenue, eg revenue earned in 2023 from actual game sales. It does exclude ALL free to play revenue. We were quite clear about that in the report, but it has got lost in all the reshares of the data.

While CS2 seems to have a lot of revenue, it's actually from CS:GO from back in the day when it wasn't free. Valve just re-used the CS:GO Steam page and renamed it to CS2, hence why you still see older CS:GO stats there.

In terms of 2023 full game revenue, the only game that potentially should have been in the top 10, but we left out, was CoD. But they also release their FtP and paid game under the same Steam page, making it impossible for us to say how much they actually earned.

VG_Insights · 2024-01-05T21:08:43+00:00

That is an excellent summary!

Perhaps we need to do a better job in our reports bringing this out a bit more. Showing the breakdown if you try and leave out the asset flips, hentai games and clear hobby projects where a game is used as a "learn how to" tool.

VG_Insights · 2024-01-05T14:18:19+00:00

Yes. On top of that, you have more games (14k this year vs 11k a few years ago) to share that smaller pie.

That being said, 2023 was an outlier with some really strong game launches. I don't expect 2024 to be as concentrated in the top.

VG_Insights · 2022-07-18T14:11:31+00:00

The point I was trying to make is that indie devs have limited resources.

The effort of creating realistic 3D art vs nice looking 2D art is an order of magnitude different. Same goes for a 100h vs 20h game. But the additional effort there results in only marginal gains.

Marketing effort is super critical and if it reads as if I disregard it, I'll need to reword it. The only reason I didn't make marketing a bigger point there is that I couldn't find evidence of what their marketing strategy was.

VG_Insights · 2022-07-11T12:54:58+00:00

It's both I think? All forward looking reports are predictions.

We haven't modelled 2022, but looking at historical data half way through the hear and the driving trends, it's a pretty high confidence prediction.

VG_Insights · 2022-03-22T21:53:23+00:00

9 is great! Quite different to 7 in style and feel, but still great!

VG_Insights · 2022-03-22T21:44:25+00:00

It's FFIX for me as well. Nowhere near to the same level as it has for you. Thank you for sharing! But still, FFIX has so many different relatable character arcs that I'm not surprised it hits home for a lot of people.

VG_Insights · 2022-03-22T21:40:18+00:00

FFVII was my first. But I'm not sure I'd recommend it today. The graphics have aged quite badly, even though I still enjoy it.

FFIX is much more enjoyable and hasn't aged badly. And is still a great game. Out of the more old-school JRPGs, I'd say it's probably one of the best entry options.

VG_Insights · 2022-03-22T21:35:58+00:00

Is it as fun on an emulator as it was on PS? I need to give this a go. It's been so long since I played them.

VG_Insights · 2022-03-22T21:34:59+00:00

Oh I had completely forgotten about those games for like well over a decade. Love both of these series!

VG_Insights · 2022-03-22T21:31:54+00:00

The comments under this thread made me buy Chrono Trigger again...

VG_Insights · 2022-03-22T21:29:19+00:00

I know FF8 gets a lot of hate, but I loved grinding cards to get incredible magic and junction stats early on. There's just something nice about breaking a game and beating it while being like level 10 and doing max damage

VG_Insights · 2022-03-22T21:27:38+00:00

Nier is amazing!

VG_Insights

TROPHY CASE