Category: Articles

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.

You’ll get most out of this guide if you’re keen to learn more about pricing a video game and are open to mixing data with intuition.

Finding the right price for a game can make a huge impact to the game’s financial success. This article is a guide for indie developers on how to think about pricing and how to use the VG Insights pricing tool to help and find the right price for your game.

At the end of this article, you’ll be in a much better place to choose the right price for your game.

There are now over 10,000 new games on Steam every year and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a game to play, especially if it’s an indie game you’re after.

There are many ways to figure out which game to play next. This article by makeuseof captures most of them. You can also just use the Steam store search to find new games. However, we believe that our free Steam data platform can actually be even better for game discoverability.

We’ve recenlty looked into COVID impact on Steam game releases. We noticed a significant trend for both indie as well as AAA and AA games and have summarised it in the infographic below.

The above data was gathered through Steam API by using the Video Game Insights platform.

What are the important business questions that every indie game dev should ask themselves?

Developers who jump into the next game without thinking it through are much more likely to fail, not generate significant revenue and, often not even finish their game.

This article covers a set of questions that every indie developer should think about before, during and after making their game.

On Wednesday, 26th May, we’re planning on doing a Discord live event to talk about VG Insights, it’s features and video games market research in general.

We’ll hand out free trial accounts (2 week access) to all attendees for everyone to be able to test the full features of the website!

Loop Hero‘s been out barely a week as I’m writing this article. Yet, it’s sold over 500,000 units on Steam already according to Rock Paper Shotgun!

Loop Hero (Steam page) is only one of many indies that have achieved considerable and unforseen success. Fall Guys, Among Us and Valheim have all wildly overachieved the developers’ dreams. You can read more about Fall Guys‘ and Valheim‘s success in the other VG Insights articles.

This article explores the reasons behind Loop Hero’s success and what other indie decelopers could learn from it.

Valheim is still in early access. The mechanics are there but lacking in depth. Yet, it has sold over 5m units on Steam in about a month. So, what made Valheim so popular so quickly?

2020 was the year of games. Lockdown allowed gamers to play more and brought new people into the world of gaming.

11,622 indie games were released on Steam in 2020 – too many to play them all. There are some, like Among Us, that have reached everyone by now. However, there are a few that have got incredible ratings, yet, have largely gone under the radar to the general gamer population.

This article covers the top indie games released in 2020 that haven’t got the attention they deserve.