This article lays out a way of estimating how many units any Steam game has sold. It will provide a right range for the majority of games.
We are using an advanced version of what’s been known as the Boxleiter method or the NB number – estimating Steam game units sold using the number of reviews they’ve got.
For example, a game with 100,000 units sold might have 1,000 reviews on steam. The ratio would therefore be 100,000 / 1,000 = 100.
We’re using the largest dataset to date for this analysis with over 10,000 video games’ review to sales ratios analysed.
We will cover how good of a measure total number of Steam reviews are for total sales. We will then explore how this has changed over time and which multiples to use depending on the game’s release date. Finally, we will demonstrate how accurate these estimates are.
Keep reading to find out the exact multiples to use.