ResidualPlaybetaStudy your niche
What does your genre actually earn?
Before you spend two years building it, see what games in that corner of Steam make today. Every tracked title released in the period, the failures included: no survey, no survivor bias, no self-reported numbers.
$957 per month is what the median Simulation game released 2022–2026 earns today, net to the developer, across 416 tracked titles.
Only 163 of them (39.2%) clear $2,000/month, roughly one salary before tax. The bottom tenth makes $91; the top tenth $23.2k.
Where the money actually lands
The typical game here
Your actual competition
The games sitting at the median of this niche: this is the company you would be keeping.
| Game | Developer | Year | Price | Net/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F-22: Air Dominance Fighter | Digital Image Design Ltd. | 2026 | $20 | $934 |
| Exogate Initiative | Xeno Bits | 2025 | $25 | $980 |
| Humanica | PanfachDev | 2026 | $15 | $982 |
| Fallen Shinobi SS. | marron☆marron | 2023 | $15 | $988 |
| 大戦略SSB2 | Systemsoft beta, Inc. | 2026 | $60 | $1.0k |
| Cinema Simulator 2025 | HOGO Games | 2025 | $12 | $1.0k |
Top of the genre
Context, not competition.
| Game | Developer | Year | Price | Net/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EA SPORTS FC™ 26 | EA Canada | 2025 | $70 | $3.8M |
| Paralives | Alex Massé and team | 2026 | $40 | $2.1M |
| EA SPORTS™ College Football 27 | Tiburon | 2026 | $70 | $1.1M |
| Corsair Cove | Limbic Entertainment | 2026 | $40 | $548.4k |
| Sid Meier's Civilization VII | Firaxis Games | 2025 | $70 | $347.4k |
| Sandustry | Lantto Games | 2026 | $15 | $300.2k |
| Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 | Asobo Studio | 2024 | $70 | $277.8k |
| EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 27 | Tiburon | 2026 | $70 | $225.9k |
| Jurassic World Evolution 3 | Frontier Developments | 2025 | $60 | $220.7k |
| Cities: Skylines II | Iceflake Studios | 2023 | $50 | $198.8k |
Per-title estimates carry a 30–50% error range and are much tighter in aggregate, which is why the distribution is the useful part, not any single row.
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