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Amnesia: The Dark Descent becomes a million seller
by Andrew Yoon, Sep 10, 2012 3:45pm PDTWhen is a game too successful to be considered indie? Frictional Games' indie horror game, Amnesia: The Dark Descent has become a million seller.
Oddly, figuring out the exact sales numbers actually takes some work due to the game's inclusion in the Humble Indie Bundle and Potato Sack. Without accounting for these bundles, the game has managed to sell over 700K units. Admitting that a number of bundle purchasers likely own Amnesia already, Frictional's Thomas Grip calculates that the game could have sold almost 1.4 million units.
"The figures themselves are far beyond any guesses we would have made two years ago," Grip explains in a blog post (via Joystiq). "It is also insane, because this number is actually higher than it was around three months after initial launch." Certainly, word of mouth has helped propel the game's status and sales well after its initial release.
Reaching a million sales is an accomplishment for any game, let alone a game that cost only $360,000 to make. "It has since earned more than ten times that. Take that investors we talked to in 2009!"
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When is a game too successful to be considered indie? Frictional Games' indie horror game, Amnesia: The Dark Descent has become a million seller.
When is a game too successful to be considered indie? Frictional Games' indie horror game, Amnesia: The Dark Descent has become a million seller. : Shacknews
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In my opinion, "indie", by way of the cute abbreviation, implies a small developer, possibly only one person or a team of less than five (although it can be more, but I'd say having a hundred employees or more disqualifies you), and possibly doing this either on the side or not as your day job. Especially if your game falls under a nontraditional genre.
By this token, Valve is not indie, Valve is independent. Gearbox is independent. No one owns them but to put them in the same category as the small team that made Amnesia is not really fair. Not to say that one is better than the other - although if anything indie developers aim to become independent developers - but I'd say there's a difference.
Part of it also has to do with the origins of the company. Valve was founded by Microsoft millionares. Gearbox was formed as a traditional boxed product company whose creators' main claim to fame was being former 3DR employees. Not that this takes anything away from their success - look at Ion Storm for an example of a developer that had every advantage in the world and still screwed it up - but there's a big difference between a developer founded in the 90's who had to make a go of it in retail or else, and a developer who gets on Steam first or releases their game on their own website first and then gets in retail if successful.
In any case it's a great time to be a PC gamer.
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