It can be hard to get real sales numbers for games, but independent developer Frictional Games has decided to be explicit. The studio has just shared direct numbers on its latest release, the critically lauded horror game SOMA.
The data comes from a new post on In the Games of Madness, Frictional's official blog. The post reveals that after 10 days on sale, SOMA has sold 92,000 copies across PC and PlayStation 4. The developer isn't allowed to give a per-platform breakdown, but says that this number is very successful for them and well on the way to its goal of selling 100,000 in the first month. The game continues to sell at a steady rate of around 2,000 copies per day.
In comparison, Frictional says its first major hit, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, sold a mere 30,000 copies in the first month. Its sequel, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, sold 120,000 in the first week.
"One of the great things about funding SOMA 100 percent ourselves is that all money earned goes into our own pockets and is directly used to fund our upcoming projects," the post reads. "So we are under no pressure to recoup immediately so long as we get enough to keep going — which we certainly have now."
According to the post, the money from the first 92,000 sales of SOMA "will pretty much pay our company expenses for another two years."
The blog post also features some insight into how the studio has responded to critiques of the game being not scary enough and whether or not piracy has had a meaningful impact on this release. It reveals that the developers at Frictional Studios are resting up following the release of SOMA but are also preparing to begin work on "new secret projects."
You can check out a new SOMA trailer below featuring a number of critical accolades, including a shout-out to our review here at Polygon. If you'd like to read more about the game and don't mind major spoilers, check out our opinion piece on why the game is better than seminal first-person shooter BioShock.
