Braid needs to sell 'a lot' more to be profitable

Current estimates have the game at 28,500 sales in just under a week.

Braid creator Jonathan Blow has revealed that although early sales for Braid are "surprisingly good" the game will need to go on to sell a lot more in order to turn a profit.

Quoting vgchartz.com, Blow notes that the game's sales are in the neighbourhood of 28,500.

"This is a very good sign, for a few reasons! First of all, it means that in addition to getting recognition from critics, Braid is also being played by a lot of people. We've all heard of games that are critically-acclaimed but that hardly anyone plays. That doesn't seem to be happening with Braid so far. But, that could change - a lot depends on what happens to sales on Wednesday when Bionic Commando: Rearmed is released on XBLA. Will Braid's sales keep up, as with Geometry Wars 2, or will they drop off?" explained Blow.

He continued: "But right now, Braid is selling as well or better than any massive highly-anticipated XBLA game by a major publisher. So, that is very cool. I would like to thank everyone out there who purchased a copy of Braid, for supporting independent and experimental game development."

However, blow admits there's still a long way to go before Braid becomes profitable.

"People have asked me how many sales Braid needs in order to be profitable. The answer is, a lot more than it has gotten so far. However, things are looking promising now - if Braid keeps selling, I'll be able to afford to make the next game, and that will be good," he concluded.

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im wondering how much it cost to make this game even though its an xbl game? how many copies are they expecting to sell before the game can make profit, i would guess 150k

I should check out this game, even though I don't own an xbox.

And although I believe that it might have cost some money to make this game, I would also believe it if he said it just to up sales or to keep them up, so he can make more money though >_>

I bought Braid without having any idea what it was about (VGChartz hype convinced me). Yesterday, the game just clicked. Holy shit, it was awesome. Maybe a Wii/PS3 port is in order, but Braid deserves massive sales. I suspect a review in Game Informer, or on X-Play will really help this game get some well deserved attention.

Wasn't there a huge number of copies that needed to be sold in XBLA (something like 4M?), in order for the developer to get larger share from the games sales. Titles that sell less than the required amount, M$ takes 70% share, leaving 30% for the developer.
How much does the title cost in XBLA?

the developer said that after the exclusivity deal expires a pc port and possibly a psn port would happen.

It costs alot to make the game because of the restrictions placed by XBL.
http://www.gamerchip.com/braid-hampered-by-xbla-restrictions/

Jonathon Blow doesn't want to make games for XBL anymore unless they lighten up on the restrictions.
He goes on to say that the restrictions really inhibit the small games designers in their efforts to put out titles, as the restrictions seem to be geared towards the bigger developers.

Its a good game but a little short !

I think the price is a little steep but I bought it to support the Indy dev scene. Games like this are great fun and I want the producers to flourish not sink.

Yep it will be a real shame if MS doesnt take stock and improve on this. The leaderboard function shouldnt be taken away, its nice to see what your friends are up to and how fast other gamers are on the speed runs.

MS should have some MGS programmers waiting on the wings to help these smaller developers or at least improve their code documentation and packaging to make this as painless as possible to implement XBL functionality. This will help every future XBLA game anyway so its the next logical step if MS is serious about the quality of XBLA.

Just because you like his game, doesn't make him a nice person ^

He's talking shit, so the game was developed by him personally and nobody else...Its sold 30,000, its definately going to do another 20,000 in the next couple of months, assuming he gets at least 50%...

$15 x 25,000 = $375,000

oh yes of course.....

@burgles: It's 30%, so 225k.