Back in March, Frictional Games’ horror title SOMA sold 250,000 copies and was expected to break even by the end of the year. The studio has now announced that the game has sold 450,000 copies and has “broken even and then some!” The figure includes copies sold across all platforms, with Frictional pointing out that it also took part in the Humble Monthly Bundle in September, which doesn’t count as “direct sales.” Regardless, the studio is very happy to achieve the figure above, as explained in a new blog post on its website.
I think it is worth to stress just how great this is. We spent over five years making our, by far, most ambitious game ever. We also spent quite a lot of money on various outsourcing such as voice acting, 3D models and animations.
Calling SOMA “far from a safe bet” and something that wasn’t an “easy sell,” Frictional also took the time to compare the game to Amnesia: The Dark Descent and offered an insight into how well it did.
Amnesia: TDD sold about 390 000 units a year after release, but worth noting that that was for PC only. SOMA’s 450 000 units come from PC and PS4 combined. However, many of the Amnesia units were sold during 75% off sales, a discount rate we have not really had with SOMA yet. On top of this, SOMA also costs 30 dollars compared to Amnesia TDD’s 20 dollars. So even just counting the PC sales the total income is higher for SOMA the first year compared to those of Amnesia. And when you add the PS4 sales on top of that, it is clear that, in actual earnings, SOMA has far outsold what Amnesia: TDD did during the same period.
Looking forward, Frictional says that things are going really well for it since becoming a two-project studio. While details weren’t revealed, we’re told that most of the team is working on a project that is due to start production by the end of this year while the other project is halfway through the research and development stage.
[Source: Frictional Games]
