The more money a game generates in its first week the better. But how does the first-week revenue compare to year one revenue?
The numbers were shared by Simon Carless in his latest newsletter. They are based on responses from 75 developers, whose games (released in 2019 and 2020) generated hundreds or even millions of dollars in their first week.
Titles that reached less than $1000 in their first week have the biggest multiplier, getting around 6x that amount of money by the end of their first year on Steam. As Carless said, “the median of all categories is Year 1 revenue being 3.05x Week 1 revenue.”
The ratios are also the same for games in Early Access, excluding titles that reached less than $1000 in their first week. However, the more a game cost the bigger Year 1 multiplier they usually have. For example, titles that cost $30+ had a median multiplier of 3, while $10-14 games had a median of 2.575. “Not saying ‘charge more for your game because it’ll get a better multiplier’, though, haha,” Carless noted.
The full breakdown and more data can be found here.