Braid’s status as one of the first commercially successful indie games hasn’t helped its recent re-release succeed, lead developer Jonathan Blow explains.
Image source: Thekla
Let us recall that Braid Anniversary Edition (that’s the name of the remaster) was released in mid-May. The new version differs from the original game from 16 years ago in additional content, redrawn graphics and a mode with developer comments.
A selection of Blow’s statements about Braid Anniversary Edition sales from various streams over the past month and a half was recently published by Blow Fan, a YouTube user who follows the game designer’s work:
On June 17, Blow stated that Braid Anniversary Edition had sold “terribly”; a month later, on July 21, Blow described Braid Anniversary Edition sales as “absolutely terrible”; a week later, on a stream on July 27, Blow once again admitted that Braid Anniversary Edition had sold “badly, badly”.
By mid-June, sales of the Braid Anniversary Edition were “as bad as it gets compared to what our company (Thekla) needs to survive.” “The future is murky, so to speak,” Blow said at the time.
By the end of July, due to the failure of the Braid Anniversary Edition, Thekla had no money left to pay employees, and as a result, Blow’s programming language Jai is currently not being worked on.
The game was not promoted at exhibitions and festivals because Blow doesn’t see much point in it.
“At some point you realize you’ve done a good job, even if the world doesn’t recognize it. I think this is one of those times,” Blow emphasized what he considers to be the main advantage of the remaster (detailed developer comments).
Braid Anniversary Edition is out now on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and iOS with Android for Netflix subscribers. The most successful platform for the re-release by far is Steam.
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