They managed to sell 36k units, needing 24k to be able to keep operating. 41.7% of sales were pre-orders. Critic scores influence was ”pretty much none”.
”Well it is obviously impossible to say what we would have sold with worse grades, but what we can do is to see what correlations there are between positive reviews and spikes in sales. It turns out there is pretty much none,” posted Fractional.
”The only correlation we managed to find was with combined release of the Zero punctuation and Gamespot reviews. These were out very close in time and almost quadrupled sales compared to the previous days before (about 150/day to 600/day).”
Reviews actually help other major media outlets considering a write up for a videogame, note Fractional, which is great for long term exposure. ”Getting a review in a high-status outlet have meant mails from many other publications and convinced other media folk that the game is worth writing about,” they said.
Right now the studio is busy with their next project and while spirits are high among Fractional staff, salaries remain lower than the standard to keep them going.
”For the team, it is now finally back to more normal salaries. This still means that we are paid below, or just at, minimum wage (there is not an actual minimum specified by law, we just mean according to standards) here in Sweden though,” they continued.
”We have made some calculations and if we were to increase salaries to normal levels, our current earnings would only last for a year and a half at most. We estimate that it will take at least two years to complete our upcoming game and there are more expenses involved than salaries for the five team members (check the credits for Amnesia!).”
”So right now, we have to stick to having low salaries and see how sales pan out.” Amnesia: The Dark Descent released on PC over a month ago and enjoys a Metacritic rating of 85 based on 31 published reviews. Check out Fractional’s post-Amnesia blog.
