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

15 in 100 2D + RPG launches at $10 to $20 earned $100k+ in their first year. That is worse than the 20 in 100 for all indie launches at $10 to $20: about 0.7 times the rate.

Chance of $100k+

15 in 100

Notch: 20 in 100 for all indie launches at $10 to $20.

Typical first year

$7,030

7% of the way to $100k. Half earned less. Notch: $10,978, every game at $10 to $20.

Competition

203 launches

At $10 to $20, in two years (about 102 a year). Busier than 99 in 100 tag pairs; the notch is the middle one.

Coming soon

3,071 games

Coming-soon games with these tags. More than 100 in 100 tag pairs. Highest on wishlists: Melvor Idle 2 (#381), Tales of Eternia Remastered (#601).

What launches like this earned in their first year

Only the top tenth clears $100k; the top quarter falls short.

Typical launchHalf earned less$7,0307% of the way to $100k.

Top quarter1 in 4 earned at least$51,15251% of the way to $100k.

Top tenth1 in 10 earned at least$181,6731.8 times the $100k line.

2D + RPG at $10 to $20 past the $100k line (squeezed to fit, not to scale) every game at $10 to $20

Warning lamps

2 of 5 lit

One-hit marketLit
DELTARUNE earned 56% of all the money. Read the typical figure, not the hits.
Audience splitOff
Clear.
Small sampleOff
Clear.
May be luckLit
Reads worse than the 20 in 100 for all indie launches at $10 to $20, but with 203 launches a gap this size often comes from chance alone.
Changed recentlyOff
Clear.

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: holds.

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, 4 Oct 2026.

3What next

Monthly read

Free

A monthly read on 2D + RPG

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 odds15 in 100 earned $100k+ at $10 to $20, against 20 in 100 for all indie launches at $10 to $20.
EarningsTypical first year $7,030; 1 in 10 earned $181,673 or more.
Launches1,182 games of every kind with these tags in the last 12 months (807 the year before).
Coming soon3,071 games; highest on wishlists Melvor Idle 2 (#381).

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Comparables

Lifetime

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

DELTARUNElaunched 2025, 126,541 reviews$84.7M

1DELTARUNE$84.7M2025

2Mewgenics$39.1M2026

3ENDER MAGNOLIA: Bloom in the Mist$9.6M2024

4Drova - Forsaken Kin$6.1M2024

5UFO 50$4.8M2024

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 (4 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.