Please support Game Informer. Print magazine subscriptions are less than $2 per issue
With Soma Approaching Profitability, Frictional Games Expands Scope To Two New Projects
Today in a revealing blog post, Frictional Games revealed how its critical darling Soma has fared in sales since launching last September.
In the last six months the company has sold a little more than 250,00 copies of the game. If it stays on its current pace, Frictional anticipates being in the black "well before the year is over." Given the overabundance of indie titles proliferating digital storefronts like Steam these days, this is no small feat even for a studio with the pedigree of a game like Amnesia.
Perhaps more exciting for Frictional fans, the studio also announced it is expanding its operations to develop two games at once, each in a different genre to keep their game projects from blurring together and perhaps undermining the sales of each other. "A problem with Soma is that it lies between two genres," Frictional wrote. "Not only has this probably led to lost sales, it's also most likely the reason why Soma cannibalized the Amnesia sales. The moment that SOMA came out, sales of Amnesia: The Dark Descent went down too, and has stayed down ever since. We saw the same happening when we released Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs, but since Soma is in many ways quite different from Amnesia, we thought it wouldn't happen this time. But it did, and the reason seems to be that people lump both titles under a 'Current Horror From Frictional Games' label."
[Source: Frictional Games]
Our Take
Going your own way in the indie space is getting increasingly difficult, so it's nice to see beacons of success emerge, even when, as in Soma's case, the road to profitability is slightly longer than anticipated. Even more exciting is the expansion of Frictional Games. We're excited to see what the moody and heady developers come up with next.
I’d like to ask you to support Game Informer’s continued coverage of games with a subscription. For less than two dollars per issue, we mail you a full year of 10 print magazines, each with cover stories and preview features filled with exclusive details about the most exciting upcoming games. We profile and interview game creators. We look back on the rich history of gaming, and we celebrate what’s next.
Here on the website, we offer much of our content for free, including game reviews, daily news, videos, event coverage, and more – all with minimal ads.
We do so with a small editorial team, alongside contributing paid writers from around the world – over 65 individuals from 9 countries around the world, just in the last couple of years.
It’s not possible without support.
In a time when game makers and games coverage have faced hard struggles and layoffs, the future of this 30+ year magazine and community is at risk. Our new standalone magazine subscription is the number one way you can keep us alive – and we believe you’ll get a pretty fantastic gaming magazine in your mailbox every few weeks for your trouble.
Thank you.
