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Should I ship a Character Customization Loot game?
Character Customization + Loot
Of 177 developers who shipped a Character Customization Loot game in the last 2 years: 3 in 10 made under est. revenue: est. copies × today's US list price; gross, before Steam's cut, taxes and refunds. See method., the middle one made est. revenue: est. copies × today's US list price; gross, before Steam's cut, taxes and refunds. See method., 1 in 4 cleared est. revenue: est. copies × today's US list price; gross, before Steam's cut, taxes and refunds. See method., 1 in 20 cleared est. revenue: est. copies × today's US list price; gross, before Steam's cut, taxes and refunds. See method.. 404 more are announced, ×3.5 for every developer who shipped in the last year.
Verdict: poor odds, for a 6 / 10 build.
The middle developer here made $5.4k, ×8.6 the market's $630 for a 6 / 10 build, and 3 in 10 made under $1.5k; 1 in 20 cleared $2.4M, ×3898 the market median. Revenue is down 30% on the market; 404 games are announced against 115 developers who shipped in the last year.
| Bottom 30% | $1.4k (exactly $1,436) |
|---|---|
| Median | $5.4k (exactly $5,395) |
| Top 25% | $73k (exactly $72,658) |
| Top 5% | $2.4M (exactly $2,447,706) |
| Developers, 2 yr | 177 |
| Released games | 411 |
| Announced | 404 |
| Effort | 6 / 10 |
| AI-buildability | Medium |
| Typical price | $9.99 |
momentum: how a niche's revenue percentiles and developer count moved between two equal, adjacent periods, divided by the market's own move. See method., 12 months: revenue down 30% on the market, supply 85% more developers than the period before.
Free games: 17%, excluded from money figures.
Can AI deliver it?
AI-buildability for this niche is medium: the lowest rating among its tags.
- Character Customization
- effort 6 / 10 · medium · effort 6 sits in the medium band
- Loot
- effort 5 / 10 · medium · effort 5 sits in the medium band
What it takes
- Effort
- 6 / 10 · full 3D single-player, physics sims, content-heavy RPG
- Systems
- Character Customization, Loot; 5 in 10 of the top 25% also carry RPG, Action, Action RPG
- Price point
- $9.99 typical · top 25% priced $19.99 or above
Why players buy here
The top 25% priced at $19.99 or above; the middle game at $9.99.
The top 10 games average 77% positive over 243,688 reviews.
What kills games here
3 in 10 developers made under $1.5k. 6 in 10 of the 72 games released 1 to 2 years ago have fewer than 100 reviews. 404 games are announced against 115 developers who shipped in the last year, ×3.5 per shipper.
Adjacent niches
Character Customization with a different second tag, ranked by verdict then median.
- + Football (American)Strong odds
- + Real-TimeStrong odds
- + Music-Based Procedural GenerationFair
- + TransportationFair
- + MinigamesFair
- + DwarvesFair
- + BikesFair
- + IdlerFair
- + IncrementalFair
- + GamblingFair
- + Precision PlatformerFair
- + TypingFair
Comparable games
| Capsule | Game | Released | Price | Reviews | Est. copies | Est. revenue | Developer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | Path of Exile 2 | · EA | $29.99 | 167,730 76% | 5.0M | $151M (exactly $150,906,681) | Grinding Gear Games |
| | Last Epoch | older | $34.99 | 106,364 76% | 3.2M | $112M (exactly $111,650,291) | Eleventh Hour Games |
| | Diablo® IV | older | $49.99 | 58,668 69% | 1.8M | $88M (exactly $87,984,400) | Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. |
| | Grim Dawn | older | $24.99 | 92,979 93% | 2.8M | $70M (exactly $69,706,356) | Crate Entertainment |
| | Nioh 2 – The Complete Edition | older | $49.99 | 33,892 87% | 1.0M | $51M (exactly $50,827,832) | KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD. |
| | Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem | older | $19.99 | 61,837 55% | 1.9M | $37M (exactly $37,083,649) | WOLCEN Studio |
| | Tom Clancy’s The Division® 2 | older | $29.99 | 32,600 79% | 978k | $29M (exactly $29,330,220) | Ubisoft |
| | OUTRIDERS | older | $19.99 | 46,146 66% | 1.4M | $28M (exactly $27,673,756) | People Can Fly |
| | Witchfire | · EA | $39.99 | 17,131 91% | 514k | $21M (exactly $20,552,061) | The Astronauts |
| | Torchlight II | older | $19.99 | 33,094 92% | 993k | $20M (exactly $19,846,472) | Runic Games |
| | Titan Quest II | · EA | $34.99 | 17,398 81% | 522k | $18M (exactly $18,262,681) | Grimlore Games |
| | Farever | · EA | $19.99 | 8,968 75% | 269k | $5.4M (exactly $5,378,110) | Shiro Games |
| | Road to Vostok | · EA | $19.99 | 8,646 84% | 259k | $5.2M (exactly $5,185,006) | Road to Vostok Ltd. |
| | Elin | · EA | $19.99 | 8,406 93% | 252k | $5.0M (exactly $5,041,078) | Lafrontier |
| | Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion | $69.99 | 1,838 63% | 55k | $3.9M (exactly $3,859,249) | Marvelous Inc. | |
| | NORSE: Oath of Blood | $34.99 | 2,535 56% | 76k | $2.7M (exactly $2,660,990) | Arctic Hazard | |
| | Tower of Babel: Survivors of Chaos | $12.99 | 6,281 68% | 188k | $2.4M (exactly $2,447,706) | NANOO | |
| | SpiritVale | · EA | $14.99 | 4,755 48% | 143k | $2.1M (exactly $2,138,324) | Baikun Interactive |
Estimates: copies = reviews × 30, gross = copies × list price.
Five niches a week, one death, one deep dive.
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