How decorating game Furnish Master grossed $787k on Steam in 12 months, recouping its budget many times over

Alex Blintsov, CTO at Enraven Games and former development team lead at Pixonic, has created a relaxing decorating sim called Furnish Master. A year after the game’s Early Access launch, he shared its revenue, wishlists, and other valuable data.

Blintsov recently published a blog post on Notion, detailing the development of Furnish Master and the results he has achieved in the 12 months after the game’s Early Access release on February 20, 2024. Not only did he share the number of copies sold or wishlists, but also provided a breakdown of each category.

Below are the key takeaways:

Blintsov developed Furnish Master in his spare time over the course of two years;
Pre-release costs amounted to $11,550k, including $1,600 spent on assets and nearly $8,000 on ads (Twitter, Reddit, Meta), while post-launch costs were $4,000;
Taking into account the cost of Blintsov’ time, Furnish Master’s total budget would be around $85k;
The game launched with 96k wishlists: that number has now surpassed 205k, with peak months being December 2023 (49k additions) and June 2024 (30.8k);

Furnish Master’s wishlist additions by month

Furnish Master has sold over 65.8k units to date: it also had around 11.7k refunds, or 17.8% of its lifetime sales;
“The highest refund percentage the game had was in the summer, with over 21%,” Blintsov noted. “Sandbox mode was locked unless the user completed a tutorial, which was in story mode without any notification of sandbox mode being unlocked. The tutorial also had technical issues and was sometimes impossible to complete”;
Furnish Master grossed over $787k on Steam, with its net revenue surpassing $582k: the game recouped its costs several times over, netting Blintsov himself around $407.6k after all royalties, payments, and taxes;
The game has a median playtime of 1 hour and 14 minutes, with 55% of users spending at least one hour in it and 6% playing for 10 hours or more.
More detailed information on sales and wishlists, as well as other raw data, can be found in this spreadsheet (Google doc).

Furnish Master’s copies sold and revenue

Furnish Master combines decorating mechanics with economic elements, while providing players with broad customization options to change even the smallest environmental details such as outside weather and sun direction. It also has a story mode with unique puzzles and challenges. The game currently has a “Very Positive” (81%) rating on Steam based on 589 reviews.