Ben-DutkaWe love it when intriguing little games like this find success!
According to creator Mike Bithell, the indie hit Thomas Was Alone has managed to sell over 1 million copies thus far. As he said on his Twitter page :
Not bad for a crappy little Flash game."
Crappy it most definitely was not but of course, he's kidding. We just recently got a chance to review it on the PlayStation Vita, and it's definitely worth checking out . Unique and addictive, it's one of those games you just can't stop playing. However, Bithell isn't suddenly filthy rich, as the majority of those sales came through bundles, discounts, promotions, etc. As he added:
"So stop your 1mil x $10 maths right now."
The game's regular retail price is $10 but of course, he didn't make $10 million. Still, he's not waiting in any bread lines, either, and it's a notable accomplishment. He's now working on a stealth-based game for the PS4 and Vita called Volume , and we'll certainly want to try it when it arrives!
Related Game(s): Thomas Was Alone
If he doesn't have at least $2 million then the business community f*cked him in the ass.
isn't that a free PS Plus game, like for a while now too?
it is on a Humble Bundle right now. So basically 99 cents gets Thomas Was Alone, Dust Force, and some other cheap stuff. The Dust Force demo on Vita was actually pretty slick. It had great music and great platforming play.
yeah it's on plus but I didn't even bother, I don't really care what wonderful things he managed to do with a few pixels, my time is for different kinds of impressiveness.
I hear you. I do. I have limited free time for gaming as well (mostly constrained to later evenings) where I can barely keep up with the AAA stuff as it is. So taking time out for these small creative games is a hard sell. I like them though for representing the very distilled nature of video games. Where at the heart of all this graphics, stories, voice actors that modern games have thrown at us over the last twenty or so years, games can still be fun as games that don't try to be anything other than game play.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 4/25/2014 11:43:32 PM
I like breaking out the classics for that sometimes, I made a valiant attempt at Castlevania 3 recently. I tried Mercenary Kings for PS4 and was like blahhh, it may be new and neat contra type stuff but nothing actually beats contra and if I'm gonna play a new game then well you know how it is.
haha yup. Mercenary Kings is like a crappier version of Metal Slug. Back then they had PROFESSIONALS design the art and animate (metal slug has fantastic animation) it and stuff, but they worked within the very limited technology constraints.
These days, most of the indie stuff has terrible artists, who aren't anywhere near professional, trying to come up with fun game play and fun game play alone.
For as crappy as Castlevania 3 feels today, the guys who designed game knew a lot about what they were doing.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 4/26/2014 12:07:01 AM
well i can proudly say i'm one of the million and so is my brother and it's a great game.
happy gaming =)
Thomas doesn't sound alone anymore. 1 million? congrats to the guy.
need more games like this it had such a addicting charm to it.
its amazing how addictive such a simple basic game can be.
just goes to show as long as you change up the level design and puzzles, even doing the same things over and over again it does not get repetitive and boring.
one thing rayman and sonic need to learn, the levels are just far too similar so it gets a little repetitive and boring after a hour or so.
same goes for trials fusion, love the trials series but its always been that thing that bores you out of your mind after a hour or so.
too repetitive.
How inspirational… I can't wait for even more amateur produced games to outsell the professional industry.
Heck, if this developer now goes and makes a proper game this will be wort while. But if they continue to make the same amount of garbage that sells like hotcakes it will just prove there is no future in this indie industry. I will be watching.