The psychological horror-adventure game, SOMA, has now sold more than 450,000 copies since it was released back in September 22nd of 2015. Best known for their other horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Frictional Games took a gamble to heavily fund the development and release of SOMA, pouring in nearly 10 times the amount of money they used for Amnesia.
In a Frictional Games blog posted today, developers wrote: “Taken together with salaries and all other kinds of expenses, SOMA cost quite bit to make – well over 10 times what Amnesia: The Dark Descent cost us.” According to Polygon, Frictional Games has turned a profit by selling over 450,000 units since last September. In that time, it has outsold Amnesia, which only managed to sell 390,000 copies in its first year. But Amnesia’s sales only reflected PC sales; SOMA’s sales combine both the PC and PS4 platform they were released on, helping them turn a profit much quicker.
The blog post goes on to state that they’re happy to be reaping the reward for all the hard work and countless of hours they have put into the game:
This [Soma’s sales] is quite good, in fact it is so good that we have now broken even and then some! I think it is worth to stress just how great this is. We spent over five years making our, by far, most ambitious game ever. We also spent quite a lot of money on various outsourcing such as voice acting, 3D models and animations.
The post goes on to state
Despite a bloated budget and tough sell, here we are a year later having earned back every single dime spent. And not only that; we earned well past the break-even point! The project was a big success and we are able to keep doing games with scope and quality comparable to SOMA. In fact, our goal is to aim higher still.
If you’ve never played SOMA below is a 12 minute gameplay video. SOMA is a psychological horror game with an obscure storyline and monster encounters. Reviews for the game have surpassed those of Amnesia and it has garnered positive critical reviews. Frictional Games notes in their blog post that on Steam the game currently holds a 98 percent positive (recently) and a 95 percent positive review in total, making SOMA one of the highest rated games ever.
With the great success Frictional Games received with SOMA, both critical and financial, the studio has not turned its sights on two unannounced projects that are currently in the works.