The lies some publishers and developers tell us…
Remember when the shit hit the fan with Electronic Arts decided to push the limits of microtransactions? And how many publishers, developers and gaming press and even some gamers came out to say that microtransactions are now a necessary evil? And that we are overreacting. And those microtransactions are due to increased development costs even going as far as to state that we aren’t paying enough. And ironically enough some people actually believe these lies and use them as a retort for justifying the existence of microtransactions in video games. Well, it comes as no surprise that these are lies with no real evidence to back it up, and unsurprisingly enough Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice an amazing AAA title released earlier this year has proven what can be done on a tight budget.
Yesterday developers Ninja Theory released a developers dairy that they have sold over 500 000 units, which means the game has now become profitable. So far Hellblade has generated $13 million in revenue, and sales continue to be consistent and steady. It sold an impressive 250,000 units sold across both the PS4 and PC during the first week, with 75,000 of those coming from pre-orders. Let that sink in Ninja Theory started turning a profit after only 500 000 copies sold in a 3month time span, and its price point was only $30 half the cost of current AAA titles. This was a game at the time of its development cost only $10 million, this is in stark contrast to the average development cost for an AAA title is between $40-50 million.
I might not be a financial expert, but Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is almost guaranteed to double the investment money by the end of its first year if it breaks even in just 3 months. Plenty of people like to pretend that video games don’t sell anything past launch, but currently, it’s not true at all. Especially not for a game like Hellblade. Other games have achieved the same feat including SOMA, it was also released digitally only on Steam, GoG and PS4. It sold over 100 000 copies on Steam after 3 months, and it is currently sitting at 190 000 copies sold after 10 months. So this throws a monkey wrench into the whole narrative that video games are getting more expensive to produce. I wonder what the pro-microtransaction peanut gallery would have to say about this?