Jonathan Blow, the creator of Braid and The Witness, has said that the sales of Braid Anniversary Edition have been “dog-shit” and “terrible”, even going so far as to suggest the fate of company is hanging in the balance.
Braid Anniversary Edition was launched in May. It remastered the original 2008 game which is held by many as one of the best indie games ever. The new edition came with new features and even a 15-hour commentary track for fans to enjoy.
However, sales have not been good according to the game’s creator. Youtube channel Blow Fan put together a short compilation of clips of Jonathan Blow replying to fan’s inquiries about the game’s success on Twitch.
In the first clip, it had been six days since the game’s launch and Blow says that its too early to tell, but that “it’s not like we sold a million copies day one or whatever, which is, you know, that’s what you’d expect. It’s a remaster, right, and so you don’t expect it to be like a new game in terms of the hype level.”
The next clip is from a June 17 stream, 34 days after Braid Anniversary Edition launched. A viewer asks Blow if it sold well, to which he says: “No, it has sold horribly.”
He goes on to clarify that answer by saying, “well, it depends on what your standards are. Like, it sold well compared to, uh, like if you compare it to like nostalgic things like the Jeff Minter game that’s on Steam or like Atari 50. Like, it sold much better than all of those, but it still has sold like dog-shit compared to what we need to make for the company to survive. So, the future is uncertain, let’s put it that way.”
Another clip taken from a stream on July 21, 68 days after the games launch also features a viewer asking about Braid’s sales.
“No, they’ve been terrible, “says Blow. “They’ve been utterly terrible”
The user says they did buy a copy and Blow jokes “thank you for that. Now they’re terrible minus 1.”
A day later, Blow was asked by a viewer if launching on PlayStation made a difference. Blow responds: “It made a difference, but the problem is most of those platforms are fucking dead now. So, Steam is, like, easily our biggest platform and so there would have been something to be said just not porting to half those those platforms.”
Blow does go on to say that he’s still happy with the game he put out.
“It’s a really interesting thing that we did. You know, we did commentary in a way that nobody’s ever done it at a much more thorough level than anybody’s ever done it, and at some point yo just have to know that what you did was a good thing even if the world doesn’t really acknowledge it and this is one of those cases, I think.”
In the final clip, taken July 27, Blow again answers a question regarding Braid says by saying that they are “bad.” When asked how many people are working on a the new programming language Blow is designing, he said “none, because we can’t afford to pay anyone because the sales are bad.”
It paints a pretty poor picture for Blow’s company. Braid Anniversary Edition launched to a good critical reception, but clearly consumers were not interested in revisiting the game all these years later. I can’t blame them, to be honest: Braid has aged extremely well and still looks nice even today. The indie scene is far bigger and more competitive now, too. It was also an odd choice to work on a remaster considering Blow has only released two games to date
