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

34 in 100 Roguelike + Hack and Slash launches at $10 to $20 earned $100k+ in their first year. That is better than the 20 in 100 for all indie launches at $10 to $20: about 1.7 times the rate.

Chance of $100k+

34 in 100

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

Typical first year

$55,867

56% of the way to $100k. Half earned less. Notch: $10,978, every game at $10 to $20.

Competition

44 launches

At $10 to $20, in two years (about 22 a year). Busier than 85 in 100 tag pairs; the notch is the middle one.

Coming soon

413 games

Coming-soon games with these tags. More than 93 in 100 tag pairs. Highest on wishlists: Realm of Taiwu (#1,897), Demonbane: Ascension (#2,834).

What launches like this earned in their first year

The $100k line sits between the typical launch and the top quarter.

Typical launchHalf earned less$55,86756% of the way to $100k.

Top quarter1 in 4 earned at least$176,3841.8 times the $100k line.

Top tenth1 in 10 earned at least$588,2655.9 times the $100k line.

Roguelike + Hack and Slash 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 marketLit
Hades II earned 64% of all the money. Read the typical figure, not the hits.
Audience splitOff
Clear.
Small sampleOff
Clear.
May be luckOff
Clear.
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, 3 Oct 2026.

3What next

Monthly read

Free

A monthly read on Roguelike + Hack and Slash

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 odds34 in 100 earned $100k+ at $10 to $20, against 20 in 100 for all indie launches at $10 to $20.
EarningsTypical first year $55,867; 1 in 10 earned $588,265 or more.
Launches143 games of every kind with these tags in the last 12 months (120 the year before).
Coming soon413 games; highest on wishlists Realm of Taiwu (#1,897).

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Comparables

Lifetime

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

Hades IIlaunched 2024, 114,828 reviews$87.7M

1Hades II$87.7M2024

2Rotwood$4.6M2024

3Death Must Die$3.2M2023

4Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel$2.7M2025

5Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault$2.6M2025

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.