How to forecast a Steam game's sales and revenue to the end of the year

A forecast works in units per day, then turns units into net to studio. Before launch the starting point is wishlists at launch times a published first-week conversion range. After launch it is the game's own daily sales, plus planned discounts and Steam's seasonal sales, converted with price, refunds, VAT, Steam's share and withholding, as a range.

Last reviewed · SteamStats team

Definitions

  • Units: copies sold per day. Units are forecast first because price changes with discounts; refunds come off later, in the money chain.
  • Net to studio: what reaches the studio after refunds, VAT, Valve's share and US withholding. The net revenue guide linked below walks through the chain.
  • Ordinary day: a day with no discount, sale, festival or other event, used to measure the game's normal pace and its weekday shape.
  • Lift: how much a discount or a Steam sale multiplies ordinary-day units while it runs.
  • Low, Expected, High and Viral: four outcomes of one forecast. Expected is the middle, Low a cautious outcome, High a strong one and Viral a breakout that only the best cases reach.

The method, step by step

  1. Collect daily units since launch from the Steamworks sales report, and mark the days with a launch discount, a sale, a festival or an update.
  2. Measure the ordinary-day pace from recent days without events, per weekday, because weekends and weekdays sell differently.
  3. Measure the decline: compare ordinary days week over week for the last few weeks and carry the weekly change forward.
  4. Add events. For each planned discount and each Steam seasonal sale before the horizon, multiply ordinary-day units by a lift. After the game's first discount, its own result sets the lift; before that, the lift is an assumption and should be treated as one.
  5. Turn units into money: units × price, using the discounted price on discount days, then the chain from gross to net to studio.
  6. Build the range from experience: once a few forecasts exist, how far they missed for the same number of days ahead gives Low and High. Viral is a separate case in which one event far outperforms.
  7. Keep every forecast as it was made, so the next one can be checked against what happened.

Before launch there are no daily sales yet. The first week then comes from wishlists at launch times a conversion range, and published medians for that ratio run from about 0.10 to 0.22 sales per wishlist, with a factor of 10 to 20 between weak and strong games. The range stays wide until real days arrive.

Worked example: Pebblewick from 1 November to 31 December

Illustrative inputs for Pebblewick, the fictional demo game by Hollow Fern Games, on 1 November 2026: 40 units on an ordinary day, falling 3.00% a week; a price of $14.99; and 30.00% off in the Winter Sale, which starts on 17 December. The lift of 3.00 in the sale is an assumption for this example, not a Steam figure.

Pebblewick: Expected units and gross to 31 December
PartCalculationUnitsGross
1 November to 16 December40 a day, 3.00% less each week1,692$25,363.08
17 to 31 December, Winter Saleordinary pace × 3.00 at $10.491,449$15,200.01
TotalSum of both parts3,141$40,563.09

With the same chain as in the net revenue guide (7.50% refunds, 8.50% VAT and sales tax, Valve's 30.00%, a 35.00% US share at a 10.00% treaty rate), 56.74% of gross reaches the studio, so Expected is $23,016.31 of net to studio by 31 December.

Pebblewick: the four outcomes to 31 December
OutcomeHow it is builtNet to studio
LowExpected with the largest past shortfall at this horizon, −22.00%$17,952.72
ExpectedThe calculation above$23,016.31
HighExpected with the largest past overshoot at this horizon, 18.00%$27,159.24
ViralThe Winter Sale lifts 6.00 times instead of 3.00$31,641.10

The past misses of −22.00% and 18.00% are illustrative too; for a real game they come from its own earlier forecasts. The sale also shows why cash and revenue differ: December's sales are paid by 30 January and the sale's first days of January by the end of February, so all of the Winter Sale reaches the studio in the new year.

Steam rules that shape a forecast

Four times a year, we run Steam-wide seasonal sale events.
Steamworks: Upcoming events and seasonal sales
  • Valve lists the next seasonal sales: Winter Sale from 17 December 2026 to 4 January 2027, Spring Sale from 18 to 25 March 2027 and Summer Sale from 24 June to 8 July 2027.
  • A discount can be 10.00% to 95.00% off for one to 14 days, and needs 30 days after the previous one; the seasonal sales are exempt from that wait. The discount rules guide linked below has the details.
  • A discount of 20.00% or more triggers Steam's email to everyone who has the game wishlisted, so the wishlist balance matters for the size of the lift.
  • Players can refund within two weeks of purchase with under two hours played, so part of every month's gross comes back, and the money chain takes refunds off before Valve's share.
  • Valve pays each month's sales by the 30th of the following month, so a forecast of revenue and a forecast of cash are a month apart.

Why forecasts and calculators give different numbers

  • Someone else's game or your own. Public revenue calculators estimate any game's sales from public signals such as review counts and price. A forecast of your own game can start from its exact daily sales.
  • The horizon. A first-year figure and a figure to 31 December cover different days; a game launched in mid-September has three and a half months to the year end and twelve in its first year.
  • Gross, net or net to studio. The same units give three different totals depending on which line of the money chain is reported.
  • Single number or range. One number hides how uncertain the future is. A range from Low to High, built from past misses, says how far the outcome can plausibly move.
  • Learning. A forecast that is compared with what happened every day and keeps its past versions improves; one that is overwritten cannot be checked.

Where to see this in your own data

The Forecast view does these steps for each game, from its own Steamworks sales: Expected with Low, High and Viral for each horizon, actual against Expected every day, what moved the forecast, horizons for the next 30 days, the year end and the first year, and planned discounts that change it within seconds. It updates daily on Indie, Studio, and Publisher, keeps every past forecast, and is part of Indie, Studio, and Publisher.

The Forecast feature page shows the view with the demo game, and the forecast method page explains the model behind it.

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