How many copies did Factorio sell? — 2023 statistics

Factorio has sold over 5.5 million copies.

(Source: 80LV)

• The game’s sales average around 500,000 sales per year.
• The game was ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2023.
• Since then, it has also gathered over 40,000 sales on that platform.
• 40% of the total Switch sales of the game were in Japan.

This is the first line of stats for Factorio that we have, and, as you can see, the game hasn’t sold a tremendous number of copies since it was first released, but that does not stop it from being one of the best indie industry sims available on the market.

Factorio has grossed over $109.7 million on Steam.

(Source: VG Insights)

• 96.4% of the game’s reviews are positive.
• On Steam, it has sold over 5 million copies.
• The average playtime is 438.7 hours.
• The median playtime is 192.5 hours.
• The game has approximately 12,000 active players at any given time.

Even though the game hasn’t sold that many copies in total, it is apparent that it is still lucrative for its studio, as $110 million is nothing to scoff at. The game is also quite well-received and the average number of hours that players spend in it is quite high, meaning that once you start, you can’t stop.

G2A had to pay the Factorio developers over $40,000 over game keys.

(Source: PC Gamer)

• Many game developers said that they would rather their games get pirated than get sold over reselling platforms.
• In response to this, G2A said that they would pay ten times the money developers lost through chargebacks.
• Wube Software, the developer of Factorio, took them up on the offer.
• They charged G2A $39,600 for 198 sold keys.

This is some drama that we were not expecting for a game like Factorio, but here it is! Apparently, the developers are very protective of their game, as they have every right to be, so they took G2A up on their “limited-time” offer to get some money back for their troubles.

Factorio’s price was raised after seven years without a sale.

(Source: Kotaku)

• The game had the same price since it was launched in 2016.
• The developers were quite transparent with the community, announcing the price change in advance.
• The reason for the increase was the account for inflation that gradually set in over the years.

While many people consider “no sale” policies to be amoral, they make perfect sense when you think about the game in question. If it is consistently good and offers the best of everything you could ask for, then why would a sale be justified? Factorio is a massive game and is one of the best industry sims to ever come out, and a $5 increase in the price is justified.

Factorio had 5.1 million hours watched on Twitch in 2022.

(Source: SullyGnome)

• The game had 239,180 broadcasting hours.
• There were 588 viewers watching the game on average.
• There were 27 channels streaming the game on average.
• It had a viewer ratio of 21.5.
• Its max viewer count was 69,443.
• 14,664 broadcasters streamed the game.

And finally, we can finish this off by taking a look at some of the hours that people have sunk into both streaming and watching Factorio on Twitch. As we can see, even though the game is a bit older than some newer building sims, it has still not fallen out of relevance due to how much content is available in the game in general. It is very watchable and we can expect its popularity to soar as more content is added to the game.

To sum up

Okay, so that concludes our somewhat limited overview of Factorio and the strides it has made in the gaming industry since it came out in 2016. As you can see, while the content that the game offers is tremendous across all fronts, there is no denying that it belongs to a niche and that it would be awesome if it could gain more recognition and validation for what it is. Nonetheless, we sincerely hope that you have enjoyed what we’ve had to say and that you’ve learned something new!