Idea check

Pick up to three tags and a price. Get a plain answer: your odds of a $100k first year, what launches like yours earned, what you are up against, and what to watch for.

1Your idea

2The readout

Your odds

7 of 22 Swordplay launches at $10 to $20 earned $100k+ in their first year.

Chance of $100k+

7 of 22

7 of 22 launches: too few for a steady rate. Notch: 20 in 100 for all indie launches at $10 to $20.

Chance of $10k+

14 of 22 launches

22 launches, too few for a typical figure (it needs 100). $1k+: 19 of 22 launches. Notch: 51 in 100, every game at $10 to $20.

Competition

22 launches

At $10 to $20, in two years (about 11 a year). Busier than 24 in 100 single tags; the notch is the middle one.

Coming soon

322 games

Coming-soon games with this tag. More than 43 in 100 single tags. Highest on wishlists: Sword Hero (#179), Decrepit (#313).

What launches like this earned in their first year

Odds by size: the chance of a first year past each line.

$1k+first year19 of 22 launchesevery game at $10 to $20: 82 in 100.

$10k+first year14 of 22 launchesevery game at $10 to $20: 51 in 100.

$100k+first year7 of 22 launchesevery game at $10 to $20: 20 in 100.

Swordplay at $10 to $20 every game at $10 to $20. 22 launches, too few for a typical figure (it needs 100).

Warning lamps

3 of 5 lit

One-hit marketLit
Ghostrunner 2 earned 58% of all the money. Read the typical figure, not the hits.
Audience splitOff
Clear.
Small sampleLit
Only 22 launches at $10 to $20. A few games either way would move this a lot.
May be luckLit
Reads better than the 20 in 100 for all indie launches at $10 to $20, but with 22 launches a gap this size often comes from chance alone.
Changed recentlyToo few
Too few to tell: it needs 5+ hits in both views.

Lens checkOne-hit market. Standard: the base the others are compared with. West-facing view: holds. Without the breakout: moves the answer. Last 18 months: too few to tell.

Standard, West-facing view, Without the breakout, Last 18 months. Lenses use all prices.

Earnings are estimated from store reviews, so the $100k line is soft: across the estimate's range, the share of all indie launches above it runs from about 6 to 7.5 in 100. Sales on Steam before Steam's cut; about 58% of it reaches the developer.

Indie paid launches 12 to 36 months old, measured 3 Oct 2026. Coming-soon counts from the store, 3 Oct 2026.

3What next

Monthly read

Free

A monthly read on Swordplay

Once a month we re-measure your odds at $10 to $20 and tell you in plain words what changed.

Your odds, re-measured on the latest launches
How last month's launches with these tags did
Who is about to launch, highest on wishlists first

If the read went out today 3 Oct 2026

Your odds7 of 22 earned $100k+ at $10 to $20, against 20 in 100 for all indie launches at $10 to $20.
EarningsOdds by size: $1k+ 19 of 22 launches · $10k+ 14 of 22 launches · $100k+ 7 of 22 launches.
Launches76 games of every kind with these tags in the last 12 months (90 the year before).
Coming soon322 games; highest on wishlists Sword Hero (#179).

One email a month. No spam, leave with one click.

Comparables

Lifetime

Top earners with these tags, est. lifetime salesFree until launch

Half Swordlaunched 2026, 29,113 reviews$19.5M

1Half Sword$19.5M2026

2Ghostrunner 2$7.5M2023

3Arken Age$730k2025

4Stonemachia$700k2026

5Dungeons of Blood and Dream$607k2024

Open free preview

ComparablesFree until launchClick to unlockLifetime top earners like yours

4Data notes

Odds and earnings: Figures of 3 Oct 2026: 26,291 indie paid launches 12 to 36 months old (majors, $40+, adult and free games out). A hit is an estimated first-year revenue of $100k or more. Earnings are sales on Steam after discounts and regional prices, before Steam's 30% cut, refunds and sales tax. About 58% of it reaches the developer. "Typical" is the median; "top quarter" is the 75th percentile and "top tenth" the 90th. Typical figures are shown from 100 launches; below that we show the chance of clearing $1k, $10k and $100k.
Tags and combinations: 319 tags (genres and descriptors such as 2D and Casual), 4,635 tag pairs and 8,257 three-tag combinations. Pairs and triples are only in the data with 40 or more launches, so a missing one has fewer than 40; the exact count is not stored.
Price band rates: under $5: 1 in 238 (13,785 launches); $5 to $10: 1 in 28 (6,979 launches); $10 to $20: 20 in 100 (4,304 launches); $20 to $40: 44 in 100 (1,223 launches). All prices: 1 in 15. With "Any price", the comparison is all indie launches.
Gauges: Competition places the pick among combinations of the same size (single tags, pairs or triples) at the same price; coming soon places single tags and pairs among all genres and niches. The notch is the middle one. Earnings notches show every game at the price.
Lamps: One-hit market: one game holds over half the money. Audience split: the West-facing view (games mostly reviewed outside China) moves the chance more than a random cut of the same size would, with 5+ hits on both sides, or moves typical earnings over 25% with 100+ launches in the view. Review language is measured for games with 2,000+ reviews; for smaller games it is guessed from the name. Small sample: under 30 launches or 5 hits. May be luck: the gap to the base rate is small enough that chance alone could give it 95 times in 100. Changed recently: the same test as Audience split, on launches from the last 18 months. With fewer than 5 hits a lamp says too few to tell and stays grey.
Lens check: Computed on all-price figures (by-price lens figures are not computed yet). Standard is the base and is not counted. Three-tag combinations carry no lenses yet, so their pips stay grey.
Competition: Launches in the two-year sample. Coming-soon counts for tags and pairs come from the nightly niche rollup (3 Oct 2026); for three tags, from the coming-soon list, which stores only each game's top five tags, so the count is a floor. Named games are the highest on wishlists; adult-tagged games are left out.
Comparables: The top indie earners stored for these tags, with est. lifetime sales (not first year, and before Steam's cut). Three-tag combinations have none stored, so the card shows the most specific readable pair inside and says so. Matching by price and launch year is not computed yet.
Soft estimate: Revenue is reviews times a multiplier times price. Checked against 453 published sales figures: copies per review are set by price from those figures (28 under $5, 33 at $5 to $10, 40 at $10 and up); right for the typical game, rough for any single game. Across its likely range the overall base rate runs about 6 to 7.5 in 100, so every readout carries that note.