Steam features a huge number of games across various genres. Some, like "survival" games, are quite common, which might lead to the mistaken impression that they are the revenue leaders.
However, the We Love It platform conducted a Steam study that determined which genre truly deserves the status of the most profitable in Valve's store. A report was published based on data from 100,000 games, which were evaluated for revenue based on the number and quality of reviews.
This is an "estimated revenue" of a game, not actual financial figures. Researchers used the Boxleiter method, which estimates revenue based on the number of reviews, a multiplier, and the game's price. The published report provided conservative (20x), standard (35x), and optimistic (50x) estimates.
If we take the "average" (35x), the top five revenue-leading genres are as follows:
- Sandbox
- Visual Novels
- Simulators
- Role-playing games
- Horror
This chart shows the share of games that earned over $100,000 – "sandbox" games are still in first place (27.4% share), with some changes in other positions:
First-person shooters
Role-playing games
Action RPGs
Simulators
Among all genres, 3D and 2D platformers, arcade games, and hidden object games perform the worst.