Frictional: "Online PC market just getting bigger and bigger"

Swedish developer Frictional Games has announced 200,000 sales of its 2010 PC exclusive Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

The horror game pulled in those sales over four months - initially managing under 40,000 during the first 30 days, but seeing ongoing success thanks to Holiday discounting on services such as Steam.

Frictional co-founder Thomas Grip admitted that, while price cuts as high as 75 per cent meant profits were not as high as the 200,000 figures suggests, " summarising all sales since release actually puts us in a state that we never imagined being in."

This has also led the studio to reassess the PC as a platform. "The sales that we have had (and are having) are more than enough to motivate developing a game with the PC as the main (and even only) platform.

"Based on what we have seen, the online PC market is just getting bigger and bigger, and we are convinced we are far from the end of this growth. We think that other developers that consider making their game exclusive to a console might want to think again."

However, Grip admits that although the game accomplished its sales with minimal marketing, " We have been extremely lucky with our media coverage and gotten tons of free PR."

Without Amnesia's success, Grip claimed, Frictional "would probably be looking for a new publishing deal at this point instead of having the freedom we now have." Staff had recently considered getting "proper jobs", but the studio is now "completely financially stable and have enough money to complete our next game without any problems."

Young studio Carpe Fulgur finds itself in a similar position, becoming a full-time endeavour for its staff after accruing 100,000 online PC sales for its English translation of Japanese indie title Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale.