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Dear Esther repays Indie Fund investment in 6 hours

Ghost story sells 16,000 copies on day one

Another Indie Fund game has recouped its investment, and ghost story Dear Esther did it in just 5.5 hours.

"To be honest, we are a little surprised by how many people bought Dear Esther so quickly," said Indie Fund.

"We were expecting the game to have a niche appeal. In fact the situation is quite different; all day it was the top-selling game on Steam."

The game, created by thechineseroom and Robert Briscoe, went on sale yesterday price at £6.99 and promptly sold 16,000 copies. Not bad for a game based on a Half-Life 2 mod.

Indie Fund invested $55,000 in the project last year, despite concerns that it was too arty to make much money.

"We appear to have been very wrong about all this. We are happy to have been wrong."

Indie Fund's previous release was Q.U.B.E., which sold over 12,000 copies in four days, paying back its $90,000 investment.

The Indie Fund offers flexible investments to game developers, with Braid's Jonathan Blow and Kellee Santiago as part of the team.

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Rachel Weber avatar
Rachel Weber has been with GamesIndustry since 2011 and specialises in news-writing and investigative journalism. She has more than five years of consumer experience, having previously worked for Future Publishing in the UK.
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