In their blog post, Harvey and Samyn address the “failure” of their most recent release, Sunset. Despite a development philosophy and marketing strategy tuned to connect the game to a broader audience, the game sold only “a little over 4,000 copies” to date, including units sold to backers of the game’s Kickstarter.
Honestly, I’m still working through this announcement. There are a lot of angles to think about here, and it’s one of those moments that brings into focus the broader state of video games.
On one hand, there has been a serious increase in the number of independent, experimental, and avant garde games in the time since Tale of Tales was first founded. The company’s contribution to that growth shouldn’t be underestimated. But at the same time, this case is a reminder that those experimenting with the form of video games often do so by taking great financial risks, and that means putting additional pressure on them to make not only games, but marketable products.