In gamedev we usually count it like this:

* Refunds and VAT 16% overall

* Steam cut 30% below $10,000,000 sales

* Publisher cut from net profit after recouperation is around 50%

So developer get around $5.88, but obviously for some countries it's can be better because there is no VAT or lower VAT, but price there would be like $5-15.

PS: And yeah from $5.88 you still owe some corporate tax.

Damn! Thank you very much for the info. Quite interesting - and unfortunately, more of a cut than I expected.

Unfortunately games that did not succeed never make it to the point where publisher recouperated it's investments so it's actually worse. If the publisher fully funded the game they will take 80%, 90% or everything.

why are refunds so commonly counted against sales in this way? Wouldn't a refund cost essentially nothing?

To be honest it's just a thing from financial models inside industry. When you plan how much copies you suppose to sell to turn profit you must consider refund rate as well.

Another reason is that games on Steam can and are often refunded after quite long time has passed. E.g people buy lots of games on holidays or sales and then refund them when they decide not to play it. Sometimes refunds can happen even after a year if e.g player can't get your game to run on their device, etc.

But yeah it make sense not to include it in math for single sale that was not refunded.

Ah, I see - thank you for the context! If you don't mind one more question - do you have to leave a substantial amount of cash in the Steam account in case of very late refunds? Or does Steam just send you an invoice or something?

As developer you don't have "cash on Steam account". Valve just do automatic payouts to a bank with a delay around ~1 month.

As for refunds AFAIK if you have bunch of refunds later they will just be substracted from future sales. But games I worked on didnt have refund spikes so no clue how Valve handle situations with mass refunds.