What price should I set for my game on Steam in 2025?

Marketers Andrey Odintsov and Petr Tsap conducted a study of pricing strategies on Steam. They identified success criteria for different price categories on the platform and shared the recommended investment size for each.

About the Authors

Andrey Odintsov and Petr Tsap

Andrey Odintsov specializes in cost-efficiently attracting as many players as possible to Steam games. He previously focused on promoting mobile products.

Petr Tsap persuades players to purchase games at the most favorable price for developers. Throughout his career, he has worked in automation and personal b2c and b2b sales.

Introduction

We were so intrigued by Anton Slashchev's analysis of the mobile game market that we decided to conduct a similar study of the premium game market on Steam. Additionally, we sought to determine:

What price should be set for your games on Steam in 2025?
How much should be invested in game development and marketing to break even?

Methodology

For this study, we relied on data obtained from the Gamalytic service.

Gamalytic assesses sales and audience figures for games on Steam, using a wide range of aggregated platform indicators—such as online presence, release year, average time spent in-game, number of reviews, public sales data from developers, and more. According to the service's website, their approach generally achieves an accuracy rate of 80%, compared to the 63% accuracy of the review-based assessment method.

We evaluated only those games released within the past three years. Therefore, the results can serve as a benchmark for developers currently preparing their titles for release.

Game Success on Steam

From January 1, 2022, to December 31, 2024, 42,782 games were released on Steam. Of these:

35,720 were premium games;
7,062 were free-to-play games.

Of the premium games, only 2,899 titles sold 10,000 copies or more, with a success rate of 8.11%.

Among free-to-play games, only 58 titles reached 1 million installs or more, with a success rate of 0.82%.

Note: 10,000 sold copies were considered equivalent to 1 million downloads, adjusted for the average payer conversion rate of 1%.

Based on this, we reached the following conclusions:

Today, for a small, solid team, it's significantly more profitable to create a premium game for Steam than to compete in the crowded mobile marketplace with seasoned developers, massive marketing budgets, and an abundance of existing content.
The vast majority of free-to-play games on Steam fall short of marketplace audience expectations. This presents vast opportunities for experienced free-to-play developers, although they will likely need to significantly redesign their game presentation to succeed.

Game Success by Price Range

To determine success, we took revenue data from released games and distributed them into price ranges. We considered the base price of a game as its positioning from the developer's perspective.

To accurately account for prices, often fractional, we used price ranges of $1-4, $4-9, $9-14, $14-19, and so on up to $59+.

We divided revenue into five categories: up to $10,000, over $10,000, over $100,000, over $1 million, and over $10 million.

We then evaluated the success of games based on their earnings in each price category.

For games priced under $4, the chance of earning over $10,000 was 3.69%. This is a bit more appealing than the mobile market; however, it raises the question of how to create a game whose development and marketing would cost less than $7,000, considering Steam's commission.

Games in the $4-9 range have an 11.29% chance of earning more than $10,000.

The intermediate conclusion is simple: if you want to create a small, enjoyable game, its minimum price should be $4.99, preferably $7.99, or even $8.99.

Note that for this price segment, the chance of earning more than $100,000 was 2.68%, comparable to the 2.7% probability of being among the top in the mobile market. This offers opportunities for experienced mobile developers focused on pure gameplay, such as hyper-casual developers, to release their products in this price range as premium games.

For games in the $9-14 range, the likelihood of earning over $100,000 is 7.4%, yet this enters the "double-digit trap": players viewing base prices of $10 and up tend to approach the purchase decision differently. Games priced at $9.99 and below are often bought impulsively and receive slightly higher ratings as expectations are lower.

The situation is the opposite for games priced at $10 and above. When deciding on such purchases, players tend to read reviews more actively, study feedback, and generally make the buying decision more carefully. Therefore, it's better to set the price a few dollars higher to recoup more revenue during sales at $9.99.

For games priced at $14-19, the chance of earning $1 million or more is 3.21%. Thus, if you're considering setting the price at $13, it makes sense to price it at $14.99. Your product will be critically analyzed anyway, but revenue and profit will be higher.

For games in the $19-24 range, the likelihood of earning over $1 million is 7.87%. Moreover, within this price range, there's a real chance to earn over $10 million.

Important: for games priced lower, the chance of earning more than $10 million is 0.1%.

If you're developing an AA game or a solid niche A game, then confidently set the price at $39.99. Only at this price do you maximize your chances of earning over $10 million up to 7.82%. Prices like $29.99 or even $34.99 won’t provide this outcome.

Investment Recommendations

Above, we divided revenue into five segments: up to $10,000, over $10,000, over $100,000, over $1 million, and over $10 million.

We assumed the following average revenues for these ranges: $5,000, $50,000, $500,000, $5 million, and $15 million, respectively.

With this in mind, we built a profitability assessment table based on the price ranges of games and the invested funds in development and marketing, calculating profit expectations in each price range considering success probabilities (Steam's commission was taken as 40% to account for reduced regional prices).

A small note on investments. They were taken:

In ranges from $10,000 to $100,000 with $10,000 steps to accurately calculate the expenses of small games;
In ranges from $100,000 to $1 million with $50,000 steps to consider larger games.

With these data, we could answer the question, "What is the maximum investment you can make in a game of a given size and price category for it to be profitable?"

Conclusions

For games priced under $4, development solely for Steam is not profitable under the current market conditions. Such games should consider multi-platform launches—on PC, mobile, and web simultaneously.

You can invest up to $40,000 in production and marketing for games priced between $4 and $9. This could be a good niche for casual and hyper-casual games, which can monetize through ads on mobile and also appeal to the Steam audience in a premium format.

For games priced at $9-14, you can invest up to $100,000, and up to $400,000 for games priced at $14-19.

Under current conditions, investing in the quality and marketing of games priced at $14.99 appears profitable. The costs won't be drastically higher than for a game priced at $9.99, but the profits will be. Such games can already be launched on consoles, providing additional income.

For games priced at $19-24, you can invest up to $550,000, but this is the last range where raising budgets can be profitable.

Developing AA games priced at $24 and above specifically on Steam risks not breaking even. It requires thorough analysis of genres and niches, the formation of a clear marketing message, multi-platform releases, and much more to be profitable.

Conclusion

This analysis was conducted without considering the genre of games, based solely on the overall market indicators. In the future, we plan to make similar calculations of success and profitability for major genres and subgenres.

If you are interested in more details, reach out via Telegram:

@PetrTsap