We Love It, the analytics platform owned by Totally Human Media, has released a massive Steam revenue report that examines the financial performance of various game types on Steam. After analyzing data from approximately 100,000 projects, the authors concluded that sandboxing remains the most consistently successful and profitable area on the site.
The study does not include exact sales figures, but rather estimates calculated using the popular Boxleiter method. This formula calculates revenue based on review count, game price, and a custom multiplier. The report presents conservative, standard and optimistic estimates, but the main conclusion is based on the standard multiple of 35 times. The calculations do not take into account changes in adult play and prices over time. The total projected revenue for all games reviewed is an impressive $129.8 billion. Genre affiliation is determined by the six most popular game tags on Steam, so the same project can be considered in multiple categories at the same time.
In the “Genre Economics” section, the authors compare the median revenue of 30 major genres, the revenue of popular projects, and the share of “hot games” (games that earn more than $100,000 over a period of time). Sandbox games certainly stand out from the rest: the genre has both high median and top revenue, and an impressive 27.4% share of successful launches. In terms of median income, this is followed by visual novels, simulation games, role-playing games, horror games, and point-and-click games. Meanwhile, first-person shooters (FPS) and action role-playing games performed well in the top decile. This means that these genres have the ability to generate real megahits and huge box office takers, even if their market averages aren’t that high. But while platformers have had high-profile releases in the spirit of Sonic or Celeste, the profits for developers have generally been relatively low.
The researchers also looked at trends over time. Beginning in 2020, the income gap between different categories began to gradually narrow, and there were fewer and fewer categories with excess profits exceeding 5 times the overall market median. Sandboxes were absolutely dominant in the 2010s—in 2017, their average revenue was 15 times the market average. Roguelike games also peaked in popularity in 2017, and while they’re still in demand, their financial metrics are no longer that far from the average. Horror, visual novels, and classic RPGs have held steady at slightly above-average levels, while the FPS genre has seen a relative decline in the first half of the 2020s. The report’s authors stress that while these numbers are just mathematical estimates, they clearly illustrate how the profit potential of different types changes as the industry develops.