Steam Revenue Report: Sandbox Is the Genre That Consistently Hits
The report's data identifies sandbox as the most reliable revenue generator on Steam, with a hit rate that no other genre approaches.
Reporting from 1 source: Automaton.
Totally Human Media's Steam Revenue Report, released August 20, analyzed roughly 100,000 games using the Boxleiter method, which estimates revenue from review counts. Sandbox games posted the highest median estimated revenue and a 27.4 percent hit rate, meaning more than one in four titles sold $100,000 or more. Visual novels, simulation, RPG, horror, and point and click also showed strong medians.
The report covers roughly 100,000 games with a total estimated revenue of $129.8 billion, but the figures are estimates. The Boxleiter method multiplies review count by a coefficient and sale price, and the report presents results at conservative, standard, and optimistic coefficients, with the standard 35x figure used here.
Free games, discontinued titles, zero-review games, DLC, and age-restricted adult games are excluded. A game counts toward a genre if it appears in the top six popular tags on its store page, so an FPS with roguelike elements can count in both categories.
Sandbox leads the median and the top 10 percent. FPS matches sandbox at the top 10 percent level, followed by action RPG, RPG, and racing. Platformer genres sit at the lower end despite popular titles like the Sonic series and Celeste.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.