00:00have you ever wondered how much money a
00:01particular game on steam has earned well
00:03let me tell you about a magic formula
00:05where you can calculate the revenue of
00:07any steam game so unfortunately steam
00:09doesn't make the revenue of its games
00:11open to the public so the only people
00:13who know how much revenue has been made
00:15by a game is the game's developer and
00:17steam however i stumbled across some
00:20secret information about how to figure
00:22out how much any game on steam has made
00:24so i'm going to show you how to easily
00:25calculate the numbers in this formula
00:27and then i'll give you a couple of real
00:28world examples to see how close we get
00:30to the actual revenue generated by a few
00:33different games now i don't know why you
00:34would want to know the revenue of any
00:36game on steam maybe you're making your
00:38own game and you're trying to gauge how
00:39much money similar games have made so
00:41you can have a ballpark of what you can
00:43expect when you launch or maybe you're
00:45just curious to know how successful your
00:47favorite game has been or maybe you are
00:49curious about how game developers do
00:51their market research and are interested
00:53in the algorithms behind that whatever
00:54the reason is let's get into it so the
00:56only public data source we have to go on
00:58to guess revenue is user reviews so the
01:01question is how many people buy a game
01:04versus how many people review a game and
01:06the way that people have figured this
01:08out is by polling different game
01:09developers and asking what their revenue
01:11is compared to their number of user
01:13reviews and this can lead us to a magic
01:15number so after interviewing hundreds of
01:18people the magic formula is drumroll
01:24the number of user reviews multiplied by
01:2830 which is the magic number and that
01:31will equal the number of units sold
01:34and to calculate revenue you can
01:36multiply the number of units sold by the
01:38game's price and then you can get an
01:40estimate of the lifetime revenue but not
01:42so fast this formula comes with a bit of
01:44a caveat some people say the magic
01:46number is not 30 but actually could be
01:49as high as 150. why is that well there's
01:52a range for accurate revenue estimations
01:54here and recent studies are shedding new
01:56light on this magic number what used to
01:58work in years past may not work as well
02:00now let me explain the technical term
02:02for this magic steam number is the box
02:05lighter number and it's called this
02:07because it was apparently devised by a
02:08guy named mike boxlighter and i first
02:11read about it in this article by jake
02:12burkett in 2014. the tl dr is that jake
02:15devised that the magic box lighter
02:17number was 73x on average for all games
02:21but this was in 2014 so jake burkett
02:23actually wrote a follow-up article in
02:252018 and in this article he outlines how
02:28he studied 50 games so he had 50 data
02:31points to run his numbers to come up
02:32with the most up-to-date box lighter
02:34number at the time what he came up with
02:36was an average of 82 purchases per
02:38review but the median was 77 and he gave
02:41it a very broad range between 30x and
02:44150x for this magic number he cleaned up
02:47the data somewhat to try to get it as
02:48accurate as possible by doing things
02:50like removing game purchases that were
02:52part of a bundle sale and you can figure
02:54that out by seeing if the game was
02:55redeemed by a steam key he also brought
02:57up some good points that are worth
02:59pointing out here number one is that if
03:01a game has been out for less than a year
03:02you can assume that it hasn't been
03:04discounted much so using the full price
03:06in your calculations is more of a safe
03:08bet than with an older game and number
03:10two is that the ratio for purchases to
03:12reviews is likely much higher in the
03:14first month because that is when the
03:16true fans will be buying the game and
03:18true fans are probably more likely to
03:20write a review for the game but that
03:21article was written in 2018 so is there
03:24any more relevant data out there well
03:26i'm glad you asked because there is this
03:28guy named simon carlis runs a newsletter
03:31called gamediscoverco and he brought up
03:33this topic in one of his newsletters
03:34from 2020. in this article he coined the
03:37term the nb number which stands for new
03:40box lighter number he talks about how
03:41the term needed to be updated because
03:43the magic number that people were using
03:45to estimate revenue was way out of date
03:47and what was the number one cause of
03:48this a simple ui change in steam you see
03:51in 2019 steam started adding a box in
03:54the ui to ask players would you like to
03:56review this game and it would pop up if
03:58they had played a particular game for
04:00more than a few hours this led to a lot
04:02more user reviews coming in for all
04:04games on steam so simon decided to take
04:06a new poll of steam games revenue for
04:08this study he had about 250 data points
04:11to run the numbers on and here's what he
04:13came up with in 2020 the average steam
04:15game had 63 sales per review and a
04:18median of 58 sales per review the middle
04:2080 percent of the sample is roughly
04:22between 25 and 100 sales per review he
04:24also talked about the difference in
04:25newly published games as well if you
04:28launched your game in 2019 you have an
04:30nb number average of 57 sales per review
04:33if you launch your game in 2020 you have
04:35an nb number average of 41 sales per
04:38review simon also makes a very good
04:40point in this article about what the
04:41estimated revenue means for the
04:42developer he advises that we use caution
04:45when calculating these numbers because
04:47even if you can calculate the number of
04:48units sold on steam we have to realize
04:50that this is not the amount of money
04:52that the developers receive they have to
04:54take their gross revenue and take out
04:56steam's cut refunds that etc so
04:59realistically you probably have to take
05:01out 30 to 50 of the gross revenue
05:03depending on how much the developers
05:05have been discounting their game okay so
05:07coming up here are the most recent
05:09numbers that i found when estimating
05:10steam revenue in the year 2022 and they
05:13come from two different articles one
05:14article is from a publication called
05:16video game insights and the second
05:18article is simon carlos again over at
05:20game discover co and he's covering the
05:22findings from vg insights so here's what
05:25they found as of 2021 the most
05:27up-to-date new box lighter number for
05:29games that released in 2020 or later is
05:3230x and that has a range of anywhere
05:34from 20x to 55x so that's the latest
05:38numbers that you should be using in your
05:39calculations i'll link all the articles
05:41below so that you can check them out
05:42they have some great data revolving
05:44around how the difference in genre and
05:46publication date play a factor into this
05:48equation for instance roguelikes sims
05:51strategies all have a higher ratio and
05:54adventure casual and puzzle games with
05:56story elements have a lower ratio this
05:58could be because players who feel
06:00personally affected by a story based
06:02game are more likely to leave a review
06:03than someone who is playing a more
06:05mechanic-driven game but in general the
06:07best ballpark number to use to get a
06:09rough estimate of any steam game revenue
06:11is the user reviews multiplied by 30
06:14multiplied by the price
06:16so all of these numbers are fine and
06:18dandy but how do we know if we can trust
06:20them how do we know if they are any good
06:22or not well i figured i would go through
06:24a couple real life scenarios to see how
06:25this box lighter number holds up i found
06:27two different games where the developers
06:29published their sales data so we can
06:31look at a whole bunch of different
06:32interesting statistics the first one is
06:34piglin i'll throw a link to the full
06:36article with all the interesting stats
06:38if you want to check it out i found it
06:39on chris zakowski's blog peglin is
06:42interesting because these stats are only
06:43from the first week of sales but it
06:45grossed over 1 million dollars when this
06:47article was written pegglin had sold 80
06:50204 copies of the game and the game had
06:541071 user reviews if we plug in these
06:57numbers into our magic formula we get a
06:59box lighter number of 74 sales per view
07:02now this is quite a bit off from our
07:03magic number of 30. but it could be the
07:05case that far less people are willing to
07:07review a game that's in early access my
07:09speculation is that people will wait
07:11until the full game is out before they
07:12give it a review it's also possible that
07:14since this is only the first week of its
07:16release far less people have been
07:18exposed to the ui prompt to rate the
07:20game since people haven't had much time
07:21to actually play it yet our second game
07:24is ravenous devils i'll link the article
07:26for this game too but the tldr is that
07:30115 units and as of the writing of this
07:33article by chris zakowski they've
07:361986 user reviews so if we do the math
07:39for this one that actually gives us a
07:41near perfect box lighter number based
07:4430.77 sales per review so keep your eyes
07:47peeled for other data points that pop up
07:49like this it's always very interesting
07:51to compare what games do well on steam
07:53and speculate why but i hope this has
07:55helped you get an idea for ballpark
07:57revenue numbers on steam so that's all
07:59i've got for now hit like if you enjoyed
08:00the video subscribe if you want and i'll
08:02see you guys in the next one
