How much does a game make on Steam? Numbers on both sides

How much does a game really make on Steam?

Not much, in most cases. Steam, the biggest store for PC games, does not disclose how much each game sells, so per-game numbers come from tools that estimate sales from public store data. The most careful estimate we found is by Chris Zukowski, author of the site How To Market A Game, using VG Insights data¹.

He took every paid game released on Steam in 2019 and added up how much each one grossed through the end of 2022. The median, the game in the middle of the line, grossed $1,136 in its whole lifetime¹. Half of the games came in below that. It is gross revenue: before the store's cut, taxes and any costs¹.

The median is the number that matters here. The average revenue is much higher, because a handful of huge games pull the figure up, and it describes a game almost nobody makes.

The numbers apply to paid games; free games were left out of the count¹. And they are from 2019. As of October 2026, nobody had published a median this well explained for games released later.

How much does Steam keep from each sale?

About 30%². That is the cut for Valve, the company that owns Steam, on every copy sold. Since October 1, 2018, the store's cut shrinks for very big games: it drops to 25% on whatever the game earns above $10 million, and to 20% on anything past $50 million³.

This applies to the game, to expansions sold separately and to purchases made inside the game³. For almost every independent game, the tier that matters is the first one: the 30%.

After the store, other things still come out. Valve's monthly report subtracts refunds, chargebacks and taxes before reaching the amount that will be paid⁴. How much goes to taxes depends on the country and the seller's situation, and it is not part of this calculation.

An example calculation, just to get a sense of scale. Imagine a $10 game that sold 1,000 copies at full price. That is $10,000 in gross revenue. The store keeps about $3,000, leaving roughly $7,000 before refunds and taxes (our math). If some copies sold on discount, the amount goes down.

How much does it cost to put a game on Steam?

$100 per game, paid through Steam Direct, the route anyone uses to publish on the store⁵. The fee is not refunded, but it comes back with your payout after the game passes $1,000 in adjusted gross revenue⁵.

For an account's first games there is a 30-day wait between paying the fee and being able to launch, and the game's page has to be visible as "coming soon" for at least two weeks⁵. Before anything else, Valve asks for identity verification, details of a bank account in the seller's name and a tax questionnaire⁵.

The money arrives once a month, if the previous month's sales passed $100. Valve pays 30 days after the sale, by bank transfer; for banks outside the United States, in dollars⁴.

The other costs of making a game, from the AI to the mobile stores, are in how much it costs to make a game with AI.

How many games make a lot of money on Steam?

More than before, and still a small slice. At Valve's talk at GDC, an annual conference for people who make games, in March 2026, the company said that 5,863 games grossed more than $100,000 on Steam in 2025, the best result in the store's history⁶.

There is a detail that changes how to read this: the count appears to include games released before 2025 that kept selling⁷. In other words, the 5,863 did not all come from the roughly 20,000 games released that year. They are all the games on the store that passed that mark in 2025.

Another yardstick is reviews. Zukowski uses 1,000 reviews as the sign that a game "took off": according to him, that mark usually corresponds to more than $150,000 in revenue⁸. In 2025, 608 of the 20,282 games released got there, about 3%⁸. It was the biggest share since 2022, and even so he writes that 3% is still very hard to reach⁸.

The total number of games released changes depending on who is counting. For 2025, the trackers give anywhere from 20,008 to 20,558 games⁹.

Where does the money on Steam go?

To a few games. Alinea Analytics, another company that estimates sales, calculates that all games on Steam grossed a combined $17.7 billion between January 1 and December 19, 2025, and that independent games took about $4.4 billion of that¹⁰.

The 2024 VG Insights report shows how that money is split. Through September 30, 2024, 13,007 games came out on Steam, and 99% of them were independent¹¹. Independent games took 48% of the revenue from copies sold that year¹¹.

But two games explain a large part of that. All the independent games released in 2024, leaving out Black Myth: Wukong and Palworld, grossed less combined than Black Myth alone¹¹. Black Myth, according to the same report, had a reported budget of $70 million, close to that of a big-studio game¹¹. "Independent" on Steam covers everything from a one-person game to productions of that size.

There is good news hidden in the report: independent games released before 2024 took 43% of indie revenue in 2024¹¹. Games on Steam keep selling years after launch, and the first week is not the end of the story (our take).

Why don't the sales numbers match each other?

Because almost all of them are estimates. VG Insights calculates each game's revenue from the copies it estimates were sold¹; Alinea and other tools do similar math with their own methods. Each one arrives at a slightly different number, and the sites that repeat these numbers do not always say which year, which group of games, or whether it is gross or net revenue.

Before using a market number, it is worth asking it four questions:

• Is it a median or an average? The average gets pulled up by the hits.
• Which group is it from? All games, only paid ones, only independent ones, only those released that year.
• Is it gross or net? Before or after the store's 30% and taxes.
• Whose number is it? Valve's, which sees real sales, or a tool's that estimates them.

On this page, the overall numbers (the 5,863 games, the store's cut, the fee) come from Valve. The per-game numbers are estimates, and they are marked that way.

What do these numbers change for someone about to make a game?

They change the question. Instead of "how much will I make", the useful question is "how much can I spend, in time and money, without depending on sales" (our take). The $1,136 median is a good reminder of the most likely size of a first result.

Three decisions come out of this:

• Make your first game small. The smaller the game, the less it needs to sell to break even with what it cost.
• Count on the store's fee. Steam's $100 only comes back after $1,000 in revenue, and the 30% comes out of every sale.
• Look at games similar to yours before you start. How many reviews they have says more about your genre than the average for the whole store.

If your question is whether it is still worth making a game with so many people releasing them, the answer is in too many games already? Is it worth making one more. And the stories of games that started out selling little are in famous games that started small.

The other side

The numbers on this page pull in both directions, and none of them is a forecast for your game. The $1,136 median is for games released in 2019 and is an estimate; today's market is bigger and has more games competing for attention. The 5,863 games above $100,000 are a real number from Valve, but they include older games and refer to revenue before taxes and costs, not profit. The huge cases, such as Black Myth and Palworld, had teams and budgets that do not compare to someone starting alone. Nobody can promise you will get rich with a game on Steam, or even that it will sell.

Your action plan

Check off what you've done. It's saved on this device, so you can pick up where you left off.

1. Write down the price you would charge for your game, in US dollars.
2. Calculate how much is left from each sale after Steam's 30%.
3. Add up what you will spend to make the game, including the $100 for Steam Direct.
4. Divide that cost by what is left from each sale: that is how many copies the game needs to sell to break even.
5. Find three games on Steam similar to yours and note how many reviews each one has.
6. Decide, before you start, what will count as "it worked" for this first game, besides money.