Braid, Anniversary Edition ‘Sold Like Dogs**t,’ Developer Jonathan Blow Says
ign.comBraid developer Jonathan Blow has said the recently released anniversary edition of the indie puzzle platformer has sold “horribly,” and indicated he is now struggling to employ staff full-time.
Blow, who also created The Witness, catapulted into the upper echelons of indie video game development after Braid enjoyed enormous success on Xbox Live Arcade in 2008. It’s since become known as one of the greatest indie games of all time, with a number of perfect review scores under its belt.
16 years later, in May 2024, Blow released a remaster with fully repainted artwork, new puzzles, and in-depth commentary, across PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, Android, and iOS, with the mobile version released by Netflix to those with an active subscription. The Anniversary Edition was announced during Sony’s State of Play event in August 2020.
As surfaced by a user on ResetEra, a YouTube channel called “Blow Fan” published a compilation of commentary from Blow on Braid, Anniversary Edition’s sales performance, made during a number of livestreams in the months since launch. The picture Blow paints here is clear: Braid, Anniversary Edition has flopped.
In one stream dated June 17, Blow said Braid, Anniversary Edition had sold “horribly.” “It has sold like dogs**t compared to what we need to make for the company to survive,” he continued. “So the future is uncertain, let’s put it that way.”
Then, on July 21, Blow was asked again about sales. “No, they’ve been terrible,” he replied. “Utterly terrible.”
In another stream dated July 22, said releasing Braid, Anniversary Edition on so many platforms “made a difference, but the problem is most of those platforms are f***ing dead now.”
“Steam is easily still our biggest platform,” he continued. “There would have been something to be said for just not porting to half those platforms.
“It's a really interesting thing that we did. We did commentary in a way that nobody’s ever done it, at a much more
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