Amnesia sales near 200,000
By
Tom Magrino
Swedish indie studio Frictional Games lauds PC platform while touting strong sales of its IGF-nominated survival horror action game.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent has already established itself as a critical darling and Independent Games Festival favorite. Now, it's also proving itself to be quite the sales powerhouse for Swedish indie developer Frictional Games. In a blog post today, Frictional said that its survival horror adventure has sold nearly 200,000 units since its initial release for the PC in September.
"This is a tremendous amount and more than we ever thought we would," the blog post reads. "Our 'dream estimates' before release was something around 100k, and to be able to double that feels insane." The post goes on to note that the majority of sales came at promotional pricing, but the studio is now in an "incredibly good" financial position as a result of the game.
Frictional also expressed optimism over the sales potential of the PC platform. "The sales that we have had (and are having) are more than enough to motivate developing a game with the PC as the main (and even only) platform," Frictional said. "Based on what we have seen, the online PC market is just getting bigger and bigger, and we are convinced we are far from the end of this growth. We think that other developers that consider making their game exclusive to a console might want to think again."
However, that doesn't mean that Frictional doesn't have aspirations to bring Amnesia to consoles. The studio is currently working out a deal with a third party to port the title to consoles, though no other information on the effort was disclosed.
Frictional closed its post by saying that it was also at work on a new, as-yet-unannounced title whose goal is to "take 'experience based gameplay' to another level." Prior to Amnesia, Frictional had been known for its well-regarded Penumbra survival horror games.
By
Tom Magrino
Tom Magrino has covered the games industry since 2006. He's been compared to Steve Martin by Ozzy Osbourne and Daniel Craig by Tim Schafer. His voice, heard largely on GameSpot's podcast, recalls that of Kermit the Frog. It ain't easy bein' Magreen.
122 comments
I'm dying to get my hands on this. It's a damn shame that most retail shores in Hong Kong don't even have a hint about what is amnesia.."sign"
Great to hear its selling well. I had a blast playing this game and to this day its really the only game that has ever scared me. That's a real feat because I don't scare easily. A nice change of pace from all the bazillion amounts of fps/action/rpg type games that are so popular.
Amnesia's price is technically more than $20 when you factor in the price of a new pair of pants. :P Such an amazing game!
Good for them! Got it because of Humble Bundle's Penumbra and later Steam deal with a 85% (instead of 75%) discount to owners of any Penumbra game. I am extremely happy with my purchase. Unfortunately it down't run on my laptop (Intel GMA 4500MHD) :( Hope they patch it up because of all those sales.
Was a really great deal on Steam for their holiday sale, I'm sure a lot came from that and good for them. Having that many people see your product is for sure a good thing.
I hope to see many more games from Frictional. They've pretty much set the standard for all first person adventure/horror games ever since Penumbra came out
"Amnesia" is good... But I like "Machinarium" more!! :P "The Path" also pretty decent though.. such a good years for Indie games :D
These 5 guys (!!!) in Sweden deserve every single penny, they crafted the best horror game ever seen with such a small budget that big publishers should be embarassed.
This is normal guys, people don't realise how good the PC platform is and always has been for games. PC gamers don't eat up cruddy titles like console people do, so yes developers with a bad game get VERY bad sales. But you look at the recent sales of a good game, let's say NFS: Hot Pursuit in it's PC edition and store+digital sales are in excess of 200,000; like here a very good number. Or look at a big one like Black Ops, something well in excess of 1 million copies on PC alone worldwide. A bonus of the PC is that the games can be priced cheaper because there's no hefty platform royalties (which is what makes console games £10 more than PC every time...)
i bought it on steam sales i didnt play it yet but i bought it literally off the hype of one of my friends. i hope im not disappointing. i buy indie games all the time and i really like what indie games are doing for the industry cause a lot of big name devs are really stale.
@campbell153 the point they were making was not exact sales figures ... it was that they doubled their goal of 100k which is ... 200k.
This is the best news I've heard in months. The Fictional Games gang are champions and I'll always buy their games. Amnesia is amazing!
Being a console gamer I'm glad I'll get a chance to play it, some PC gamers will probably be moaning and groaning over this though.
Glad it's getting the recognition it deserves, great game, one of the scariest (if not the scariest) Iv'e played too.
I got mine through the Steam holiday sale, it was £3.12 so I got my friend a copy too. They really try to push new boundaries with their games and deserve the best they can get. Well done Frictional Games :)
This is great news considering they were about to close shop depending on the sales of this game. I'd love to see what these guys can do with a good cash stream coming their way, and I think we can all expect great things from these guys in the future.
the game is more popular than ever and for the next couble of months it ill pass 300000 sales , it deserve that and more for it is the best indie game i've ever played
This is fantastic news and I'm really glad for the developers; they deserve every penny for making one of the most interesting games I've played in years. I honestly don't think anyone has ever come this close to making a videogame genuinely terrifying, and I'm not talking about "oh look there's a zombie coming at me, ARGH!", I mean genuinely, heart-pounding, goosebumps-raising scariness.
never played Penumbra but I grabbed this on sale and wasn't disappointed at all,intense game that draws you in and makes you 5h1t your pants. I know 200,000 doesn't sound like much to some peeps but this is an indie game that got most of its sales through word of mouth cause its that good. Congrats to Frictional Games,here's hoping you see another 200,000 sales or more,you guys deserve it.
Yes. Last night I downloaded (legally) this along with the Penumbra series - I figured I may as well play them in order of development. Only 30 minutes into Overture and I love it.
Well, it's sad when a game like that sells 200,000 copies in four months when a game like Black Ops, with minimal effort behind it, sells 6 million copies in day one
I'm REALLY pleased to hear this, the guys at Frictional really know what they're doing, and they deserve as many sales as possible. Also I hope this can potentially work as a wake-up call to other developers and distributors who don't believe that porting their game to PC might be a good idea. When even a single-player horror game from an indie-developer can sell this much on the PC, I think games like Red Dead Redemption easily can sell ten times more. YA HEAR, ROCKSTAR?!
Great game, should have sold a million copies by now, but glad to see they're doing well. Also nice to see a post that isn't all about people pirating on the PC. Aggressive pricing moves a hell of a lot of units on the Steam platform as far as I can tell. A weekend deal at 50% off will usually skyrocket to the top of the top sellers list and stay there for days on end. I also remember a post on Frictional's blog about Amnesia being a real gamble for them, if it didn't do well they were probably going to have to close their doors for good, glad to see their bet paid off.
first game to ever make me raise hairs. I dont know why, it has great ambience and I cant play it in the dark.
I dont get how people can play this game... I'm crapping my pants just looking at the trailer.
I can honestly say, this is the only game I have ever played that made me squeal like a girl.
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Related Game
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
- Publisher(s): THQ
- Developer(s): Frictional Games
- Genre: Action
- Release:
- ESRB: M
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