Beneath a Steel Sky on track for 20k sales in first month

Charles Cecil, managing director of Revolution Software, has told GamesIndustry.biz that the iPhone version of Beneath a Steel Sky is on track to sell around 20,000 units in its first month of release.

Cecil also anticipates that the game will shift around 70,000 copies during its first year on sale, and roughly 100,000 in its entire lifetime.

The numbers are impressive for a retro game re-released on a new format, backed by a marketing budget of only "a couple of thousand pounds," according to Cecil.

"As a small developer it's an opportunity we've been able to grasp and it's made possible because of the advent of digital distribution and of Apple who have reached out to people to buy music and games rather than download it from pirate sites," said Cecil, speaking during the Eurogamer Expo at the Royal Armouries in Leeds.

"The great thing about the Apple system is that it's so easy to use, it's easier to buy it [than resort to piracy] and it's cheap," added Cecil.

"It's so exciting that we can take something that was released so long ago and put it on the iPhone. We're in a wonderful position where we can exploit our own games in a way that you could never do at a mainstream publisher."

And he later told GamesIndustry.biz: "A key benefit of the project was that it has proven the UI on touch screen devices. The fact that the game was universally praised, particularly when compared to other adventures on the platform, leaves us in a strong position going forward, for both our original games and further adaptations."

Beneath a Steel Sky: Remastered sells for £2.99 on iTunes, with Revolution taking 70 per cent of sales.