"A $1 billion chance": how much money S.T.A.L.L.K.E.R. 2 will bring GSC Game World?

Forbes Ukraine conducted a survey of gaming industry experts to estimate how much revenue GSC Game World might generate from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, as well as whether the studio will recoup its investments.

Upon its release, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 became the absolute sales leader on Steam, surpassing all paid and free-to-play projects, including the Steam Deck, which had held the top spot for the last few days. By the evening, the game recorded a peak online player count of 113,000 (notably, it reached the first 100,000 players in just 2 hours, causing Internet disruptions for some Ukrainian providers).

What was the cost of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2?

The original game cost GSC Game World $5 million, while the new installment was estimated to be at least six times more expensive—between $30-60 million, according to Alexander Kochanovsky, founder of the esports team NAVI.

“S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has the largest budget for a single game produced in Ukraine in the past 20 years,”

said Kochanovsky.

Investment partner at Smok Ventures, Tomash Koscielnyak, who focuses on investments in game development, notes that some estimates have put the budget around $100 million. However, in the case of long-term projects (as was the case with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2), it is not guaranteed that the investments will be easily recouped.

Pavel Borisenko, head of development at the game studio Eventyr Interactive, believes that the game could very well reach $100 million in its first year— provided that it receives favorable reviews from critics and has no technical issues at launch (the critical reviews were decent but slightly below expectations, while Steam currently shows 76% positive reviews from over 2000 users overall).

“This plays a decisive role for success in the Western market,”

adds Borisenko.

$100 million in revenue corresponds to approximately 3-4 million copies sold, notes Koscielnyak:

“This is not an impossible outcome, especially considering that the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series has a large fan base.”

Anton Bolshakov, founder of the game development studio AB Games and former project lead of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, believes that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 “will be the first game conceived and created by Ukrainians to earn more than $1 billion globally.”

On Steam, the price for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 ranges from 1400 to 2550 UAH, depending on the version, but calculating potential revenue is challenging, given that the developer must pay service fees. The terms of collaboration with Microsoft and the agreement with the game's publisher, who also takes a cut of sales, remain unknown.

According to SteamBD, the game currently has about 1.5 million players on the waiting list. Based on the estimates of Alexey Uslavtsev, the lead producer at Eventyr Interactive, this could potentially convert to “around 500,000 copies sold within the first two weeks.”