In 2008 Jonathan Blow’s platformer Braid hit the indie scene like a ton of bricks and made quite the impact on the scene, arguably influencing the next decade plus of indie games that would emulate the platform archetype that Braid played in to. Braid has such an impact that it, infamously, produced a documentary of its development and reception that famously featured rapper Soulja Boy giving his impressions of the game. But in May of this year, 14 years after its release, Braid received rerelease in Braid Anniversary Edition that, according to Jonathan Blow himself and reported by Eurogamer, “sold like dog s***”.
As stated in the above article, Blow mentions multiple times that Braid Anniversary Edition’s numbers aren’t exactly pitifully low, but they aren’t really high enough to keep the company’s head above water.
Blow reiterated sales have “been utterly terrible” on 21st July and then again on 22nd July, adding on the latter that console platforms “are dead now” with Steam as the game’s biggest platform.
There are multiple possible reasons for this. For one, everyone who wanted Braid probably already owns it as it is a decade+ old game that has been on sale multiple times for multiple platforms over the years and, as will all remasters, not everyone who owns the original version of the game will want to buy a new version of a game they already own, even if Braid Anniversary Edition adds several new features such as a plethora of new levels.
It could also be that the indie platformer’s time is simply over. As stated, Braid had a huge impact on the indie scene, to the point where it was hard to not find an indie platformer around every corner, but fatigue kicks in for every product and for the indie platformer that time may have come.
Regardless, if you are interested in Braid Anniversary Edition is available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, Android, and iOS