Simon Carless posted the results of the Steam revenue survey, which around 100 developers took part in. The survey asked about the gross revenue generated on Steam in Week 1, and then asked ‘what multiple of that revenue did you have at the end of Month 1? How about Year 1?’
The survey focuses on the median results to exlude several titles that launched with a small amount of revenue. According to Carless’ findings, for Month 1, the median multiple is 1.47x your game’s Week 1 revenue, and for Year 1, it’s 4x your game’s Week 1 revenue. For example, a median game has brought in $50,000 during its launch week. You can expect it to generate $73,500 at the end of Month 1 and $200,000 at the end of Year 1. This is not including games in Early Access.
If you look at both EA and non-EA games, the following multipliers have been reported for Year 1 and subsequent years: 4.7x (Year 1 multiplier); 7.82x (Year 2 multiplier); 10.48x (Year 3 multiplier); 14.55x (Year 4 multiplier); 20.34x (Year 5 multiplier).