Jonathan Blow's new puzzle game Order of the Sinking Star has had more copies sold in the first week on Steam than his last project, The Witness. There are going to be some differences for people who've been following the developer from his previous games in terms of price – which has a big effect on your initial revenue numbers. Right off the bat the game is now available for $30, which is a lot cheaper than the $40 that the developer's The Witness game was. And that's why the developer can point out that just because you have more copies sold that doesn't necessarily mean that you have more initial revenue.
Jonathan Blow explains why higher unit sales do not equal higher revenue
The game's launch is the culmination of this creator's decade-long work. It took Jonathan Blow roughly 10 years to develop this game and finally release it on Steam. It's interesting that it takes him this long to get a game out but here you are seeing how quickly the game is selling since it launched.
The game is finally out, and people are able to get their hands on the complete project. It's been a long time coming, but the developer is grateful to see people engaging with it.
And it turns out that in the first week on Steam the new title actually sold 45% more copies than The Witness. This is an interesting dichotomy when it comes to finance. It's a lot of copies sold, but less value.
In fact, the developer said that at least from a financial standpoint the game is doing about the same as The Witness. But there's also a possibility it'll end up being better – it depends on how the sales go. But it's cheaper, which means you need to sell a lot more copies to generate the same revenue as the previous game did.
Could it be the algorithms of Steam that kick into gear and help these sales numbers continue over time? Because when it comes to the visibility of Steam, these games usually benefit from good engagement right off the bat. The developer gave his thanks to everyone for their support.
It's nice to see that people are enjoying the game. It seems that the long development time paid off and people are getting something they enjoy.
We've written about the last update for Order of the Sinking Star before, which was full of balance and stability stuff. That was the last update before this final release. With that update it was all about tweaking gameplay before the final release.
Here we have a situation where sales are great. It's a confirmation that the developer is on the right track with the pricing and development time. And so now you can play the game in full. It's on Steam for $30.
Source: IXBT
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