The We Love It platform analysis team, together with experts, conducted a large-scale study of the economics of the Steam store based on the analysis of 99,206 paid games. The authors of the work, including former Valve employee Ichiro Lambe, used reverse engineering based on user feedback to estimate developers’ true earnings.
The results show an extreme polarization of revenue: half of all premium games in the catalog earned less than $3,622 during their lifetime, while the highest proportion of successful projects earned between $15 million and billions. The study also highlights the explosive growth of the stores themselves – with catalogs replenished with tens of thousands of new items in 2024 and 2025, and already crossing the 15,814 new item mark in 2026.
In terms of cost/reward ratio, sandbox games have become the most profitable and balanced game genre, while 2D and 3D platformers have the worst financial performance.
