How to Calculate Steam Sales Figures?

One of the largest online game stores in the world. SteamWe can get a lot of information about the game on . However, one of the things we cannot learn about the games is the sales figures of the game on the platform. Valve, the game's developer and the publisher can access this information.

However, if you want to know how much the game sold, there is apparently a way to calculate it: looking at the number of user reviews. Having been in the gaming industry for 20 years Game Developers ConferenceSimon Carless, senior vice president of (Game Developers Conference), explained in an article he wrote how to find out roughly how much a game has sold on Steam by looking at user reviews.

Calculating game sales figures on Steam

Using review and sales data from 237 games sent to him by developers, Carless 'New Boxleiter number' put forward. Essentially, it's a set of ratios that compare sales and review numbers.

The reason why Carless calls it the 'new' Boxleiter issue is that Steam's new original methodology updated the user interface after it was established by Mike Boxleiter. Steam encourages a review if a player has played the game for 2 or 3 hours. of this too sales per review rate It has an effect.

According to Carless' calculations, one game, on average, 1 review for every 63 sales The median is 1 review per 58 sales. However, at this point the range can expand considerably. Some games received a fairly high number of reviews, while other games in the dataset One review in 200 sales is taking.

Also, how old the game is has an impact on the average. The number of reviews is much lower for older games released before 2017. New Boxleiter number for games published in 2020, around 41 sales per review It's happening. The fact that Steam asks players if they want to write a review also has an impact on the number of reviews. Of course, as can be expected, this effect is seen mostly in new games.

In other words, the New Boxleiter number tells you how much a game has sold on Steam. make a rough guess possible. Of course, it should not be forgotten that the result obtained is not an exact number and gives a rough idea of ​​how much it may have sold on Steam. Moreover, in free games, this rate can go much higher.

Additionally, Carless says that it is not possible to calculate how much a developer earns based on these numbers. Steam outagesThere are many factors that affect a developer's income, such as , refunds, etc.