Watery horror game Soma has sold 92,000 copies since launch ten days ago, according to a post-mortem written on Frictional Games's developer blog. Around 2,000 copies are still being sold each day, which the author notes is putting Soma right on target for Frictional's goal of selling 100,000 in the first month.
"We need to sell almost 3 times that amount to do [recoup our total costs]," the post reads. "But given that it took us 5 years to make the project, there's no immediate stress to do so. One of the great things about funding SOMA 100% ourselves is that all money earned goes into our own pockets and is directly used to fund our upcoming projects. So we are under no pressure to recoup immediately so long as we get enough to keep going—which we certainly have now."
Soma is also Frictional's first game to launch without a pirated version already in the wild. That might have contributed to Soma's solid launch, which was stronger than Amnesia: The Dark Descent but slightly weaker than Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.
It's heartening to see that Frictional can continue to fund a company with niche horror games. "The money that we've got from this will pretty much pay our company expenses for another 2 years," the post says.
Andy called Soma "a masterpiece" in his review, so take a look if you haven't had a good scare recently. The full blog post is also worth a read for anyone interested in the nitty gritty business of indie game development.
