The Witness' 1st week sales are on track to surpass Braid's 1st year sales
21 replies, posted
[media]https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/693668210499977216https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/693668528314937344https://twitter.com/TheZackMasters/status/693688470296920064https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/693693871650308097https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/693669034483527680https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/693670500862550016[/media]
IIRC Braid's 1st year sales were around 300k-400k copies, but as Blow say this is more by revenue
update:
[url]http://the-witness.net/news/2016/02/fun-sales-fakts/[/url]
[QUOTE]Okay, so here’s what I can say:
Across all platforms, The Witness has totalled over $5 million USD gross revenue in the first week, and it has sold substantially more than 100,000 units.
This is a good chunk more revenue in one week than Braid made in its entire first year, from August 2008-September 2009. (Braid initially launched on XBLA in August 2008, and it came to Steam in April 2009). Braid was considered a hit independent game at the time.
We can also compare sales by units instead of revenue; this is a little more of an apples-to-oranges comparison because The Witness has a higher price than Braid did (Braid launched at $14.99 [$16.50 when inflation-adjusted to 2015 dollars], and The Witness launched at $39.99). By number of units, the first week of each individual platform handily beats Braid’s first week of sales. (Witness on PC by itself beat Braid’s first week by a decent margin, and Witness on PSN by itself beat Braid’s first week by a decent margin, counting only by number of units). This is great because as price goes up, naturally the number of units sold goes down. So the fact that we beat Braid by units, more than doubly, is a really nice success.
The Witness launched on two platforms, PSN and Windows PC. Neither of these platforms dominates our sales; PC is very strong for us, and PSN is very strong for us.
There are some publicly-available guesstimates for specific platforms on sites such as SteamSpy, but the numbers that SteamSpy is reporting for The Witness are a bit too low (though this is kind of to be expected, I guess, from the way that site works).
So, the game is doing great. That doesn’t mean we have broken even on our development cost yet! Because our development budget was so high, $5 million in revenue is not enough to recover it yet (because we split that revenue with the storefronts, we have to subtract VAT in Europe, etc). However, it is looking like, as time goes on, we should break even and make a comfortable safety margin on top of that, which will allow us to make more nice games in the future — unless some kind of world economic disaster happens.[/QUOTE]
that's fucking excellent.
I've been waiting so long for The Witness, and it has really been worth it. Nice to have a proper Myst successor.
Looking it up it seems Braid was ~326k copies in its first year: [url]http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/116111/InDepth_Xbox_Live_Arcade_Sales_Analysis_August_2009.php[/url]
It cost $15, so before MS' cut that was roughly 326k * 15 = $4 890 000, which doesn't take into account pricedrops and as I said MS' cut. I don't know what that was back then. Was it the standard 30% or they took more? It was 30% then that's $3 423 000.
Both Valve and Sony take 30%, so that makes the Witness's $40 price into $28. 342300(if MS took 30%)/28...so, roughly 122k copies sold then?
edit: I'm now reading MS took 60% back then. Also the game came out on PC in April 2009. So, above I only included the XBLA numbers.
I still haven't finished Braid, give me more time!
Just yesterday it sounded like they wont be able to afford the next game because of piracy.
[QUOTE=AntonioR;49642498]Just yesterday it sounded like they wont be able to afford the next game because of piracy.[/QUOTE]
I think it was more "we wont be able to make a better one"
[QUOTE=AntonioR;49642498]Just yesterday it sounded like they wont be able to afford the next game because of piracy.[/QUOTE]
That was more clickbait articles. His tweets about it weren't that dramatic.
I would hope so. Blow was a nobody during the first year of Braid, but now he's had 6 years of exposure and PR.
Well, he's definitely made a return on THAT investment. Considering how he lives, I imagine it was almost more a matter of time than money.
This is easily the most beautiful game I've ever played. The puzzles are nice, but I'm more into exploring the world and taking screenshots. Everywhere you look is a potential wallpaper.
Didn't he say the other day piracy was killing his sales? This seems to say that a good game will still sell well, even with high piracy.
So the "woe is me" story about how piracy was crippling sales was just a rumor then?
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49645839]So the "woe is me" story about how piracy was crippling sales was just a rumor then?[/QUOTE]
He tweeted something like "The Witness is being pirated a lot, this won't help us support our next game guys" and the headlines were like "PIRACY IS KILLING THE WITNESS???"
Wasn't really a rumor, it was just dramatized/sensationalized by some pcgamesn author, turning it into some pretty damn tabloid/clickbait shit.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49645839]So the "woe is me" story about how piracy was crippling sales was just a rumor then?[/QUOTE]
He made a couple of tweets about piracy and people including journalists blew it out of proportion.
[QUOTE=jazzpunk;49645890]He made a couple of tweets about piracy and people including [B]journalists blew it out of proportion[/B].[/QUOTE]
what a gosh dang surprise
Reviewers also said the main game (not 100%) was 40 hours long, which is absolute bullshit because I beat it in only 14 and that seems about the average according to [url]http://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=10273[/url]
[QUOTE=Helix Snake;49647936]Reviewers also said the main game (not 100%) was 40 hours long, which is absolute bullshit because I beat it in only 14 and that seems about the average according to [url]http://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=10273[/url][/QUOTE]
IMO, if it takes me 12 hours straight to go through a game and all 12 hours are worth it, then to me its easily worth the 40$.
quality > quantity is my personal rule of thumb
That said I'm really enjoying this game so far.
[QUOTE=Helix Snake;49647936]Reviewers also said the main game (not 100%) was 40 hours long, which is absolute bullshit because I beat it in only 14 and that seems about the average according to [url]http://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=10273[/url][/QUOTE]
TBH The Witness is kind of like braid where if you just mainline complete it, it doesn't take too long. If you want to *really* complete it, or figure out all the hidden areas and secrets (not even necessarily get 100% completion on all puzzles) it takes significantly longer.
Part of the appeal of the game for me is that the game is bigger than just getting to the end credits. There's so much more to every area than meets the eye. I'm pretty sure most zones for example have hidden obelisk puzzles in the environment you can activate, that interact with the obelisks in a way I've not figured out (or gotten far enough) yet.
I.E. hidden puzzles like this are literally everywhere [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy8dDMF6JJM[/url] (very minor spoilers for a simple "meta" puzzle in the desert region). Completing them does something to the obelisks you see around the island.
[url]http://the-witness.net/news/2016/02/fun-sales-fakts/[/url]
[QUOTE]Okay, so here’s what I can say:
Across all platforms, The Witness has totalled over $5 million USD gross revenue in the first week, and it has sold substantially more than 100,000 units.
This is a good chunk more revenue in one week than Braid made in its entire first year, from August 2008-September 2009. (Braid initially launched on XBLA in August 2008, and it came to Steam in April 2009). Braid was considered a hit independent game at the time.
We can also compare sales by units instead of revenue; this is a little more of an apples-to-oranges comparison because The Witness has a higher price than Braid did (Braid launched at $14.99 [$16.50 when inflation-adjusted to 2015 dollars], and The Witness launched at $39.99). By number of units, the first week of each individual platform handily beats Braid’s first week of sales. (Witness on PC by itself beat Braid’s first week by a decent margin, and Witness on PSN by itself beat Braid’s first week by a decent margin, counting only by number of units). This is great because as price goes up, naturally the number of units sold goes down. So the fact that we beat Braid by units, more than doubly, is a really nice success.
The Witness launched on two platforms, PSN and Windows PC. Neither of these platforms dominates our sales; PC is very strong for us, and PSN is very strong for us.
There are some publicly-available guesstimates for specific platforms on sites such as SteamSpy, but the numbers that SteamSpy is reporting for The Witness are a bit too low (though this is kind of to be expected, I guess, from the way that site works).
So, the game is doing great. That doesn’t mean we have broken even on our development cost yet! Because our development budget was so high, $5 million in revenue is not enough to recover it yet (because we split that revenue with the storefronts, we have to subtract VAT in Europe, etc). However, it is looking like, as time goes on, we should break even and make a comfortable safety margin on top of that, which will allow us to make more nice games in the future — unless some kind of world economic disaster happens.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=KorJax;49649782]TBH The Witness is kind of like braid where if you just mainline complete it, it doesn't take too long. If you want to *really* complete it, or figure out all the hidden areas and secrets (not even necessarily get 100% completion on all puzzles) it takes significantly longer.
Part of the appeal of the game for me is that the game is bigger than just getting to the end credits. There's so much more to every area than meets the eye. I'm pretty sure most zones for example have hidden obelisk puzzles in the environment you can activate, that interact with the obelisks in a way I've not figured out (or gotten far enough) yet.
I.E. hidden puzzles like this are literally everywhere [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy8dDMF6JJM[/url] (very minor spoilers for a simple "meta" puzzle in the desert region). Completing them does something to the obelisks you see around the island.[/QUOTE]
Oh trust me, I know all about obelisk puzzles.
This one is my favorite so far (SPOILERS for solution to orange Obelisk puzzle near the ship and the castle)
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybHjHtLtzTI[/url]
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.