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

11 in 100 Puzzle + Simulation 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 0.6 times the rate.

Chance of $100k+

11 in 100

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

Typical first year

$9,175

9% of the way to $100k. Half earned less. Notch: $10,978, every game at $10 to $20.

Competition

89 launches

At $10 to $20, in two years (about 45 a year). Busier than 95 in 100 tag pairs; the notch is the middle one.

Coming soon

970 games

Coming-soon games with these tags. More than 98 in 100 tag pairs. Highest on wishlists: PVKK: Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant (#46), Shark Dentist (#235).

What launches like this earned in their first year

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

Typical launchHalf earned less$9,1759% of the way to $100k.

Top quarter1 in 4 earned at least$37,26537% of the way to $100k.

Top tenth1 in 10 earned at least$134,302Just past the $100k line.

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

Warning lamps

1 of 5 lit

One-hit marketOff
Clear.
Audience splitOff
Clear.
Small sampleOff
Clear.
May be luckOff
Clear.
Changed recentlyLit
Launches from the last 18 months: 4 of 156 launches, against 1 in 31 across both years, more than a random cut of that size would move.

Lens checkChanged recently. Standard: the base the others are compared with. West-facing view: holds. Without the breakout: holds. Last 18 months: moves the answer.

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 Puzzle + Simulation

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 odds11 in 100 earned $100k+ at $10 to $20, against 20 in 100 for all indie launches at $10 to $20.
EarningsTypical first year $9,175; 1 in 10 earned $134,302 or more.
Launches536 games of every kind with these tags in the last 12 months (338 the year before).
Coming soon970 games; highest on wishlists PVKK: Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant (#46).

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

Comparables

Lifetime

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

shapez 2 - Factorylaunched 2024, 13,943 reviews$10.8M

1shapez 2 - Factory$10.8M2024

2Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2$5.5M2023

3Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library!$3.2M2026

4The Operator$3M2024

5Cheap Car Repair$2M2026

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.
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.