I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’ve heard a rough proxy for modest success “above breakeven” in the indie sphere is 1,000+ reviews.
The chart doesn’t break out the 1,000+ review count band, but it looks like under 5% of the 19,000 games released in 2025 on Steam were even able to go above 500 review count.
The 1,000+ review count band as a measure of success does make sense in a back of the napkin kind of way.
Assuming 5% of buyers leave a review, that would be 20,000 in sales. At a net unit revenue of $10 (after Steam’s cut and the payment processor), that would be $200 K net revenue.
An unfortunate ‘secret’ for most indie titles is that the vast majority of their sales are on discount, usually during launch or one of the big week long sales. Not a lot of people buy indie games at full sticker price unless its a pretty high quality title.
So your $200K net revenue would be at absolute max, but is realistically ~50-80% of that.
Assuming 5% of buyers leave a review, that would be 20,000 in sales. At a net unit revenue of $10 (after Steam’s cut and the payment processor), that would be $200 K net revenue.
A unit revenue of $10 means your product is going for ~15 base price. I don’t know about you, but I rarely buy stuff above $10 anymore. So like the other guy said, you’re looking at like half of that based on people buying during sales.
I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’ve heard a rough proxy for modest success “above breakeven” in the indie sphere is 1,000+ reviews.
The chart doesn’t break out the 1,000+ review count band, but it looks like under 5% of the 19,000 games released in 2025 on Steam were even able to go above 500 review count.
The 1,000+ review count band as a measure of success does make sense in a back of the napkin kind of way.
Assuming 5% of buyers leave a review, that would be 20,000 in sales. At a net unit revenue of $10 (after Steam’s cut and the payment processor), that would be $200 K net revenue.
An unfortunate ‘secret’ for most indie titles is that the vast majority of their sales are on discount, usually during launch or one of the big week long sales. Not a lot of people buy indie games at full sticker price unless its a pretty high quality title.
So your $200K net revenue would be at absolute max, but is realistically ~50-80% of that.
That’s fair. A blended net revenue per unit figure of $10 might actually be high.
A unit revenue of $10 means your product is going for ~15 base price. I don’t know about you, but I rarely buy stuff above $10 anymore. So like the other guy said, you’re looking at like half of that based on people buying during sales.