Campo Santo’s Firewatch is an indie game hit, with publisher Panic reporting that the game has sold over 500,000 copies, bringing in $10 million in revenue.
Whenever developers leave established studios and set off on their own to work in the indie game scene, it’s a major risk. These developers are often leaving behind “sure thing” jobs in order to work on their video game dream projects. For the developers at Campo Santo, that gamble has paid off, as Firewatch has proven to be very lucrative within its first month on sale.
Firewatch, a narrative-driven video game developed by former Walking Dead and Mark of the Ninja devs, has sold over 500,000 copies across PC and PlayStation 4. This equates to about $10 million in revenue, not counting the cut taken by digital storefronts, and makes Firewatch an inarguable sales success.
Firewatch was the best-selling PSN game of February, but the PC version has resulted in the developers having an additional source of revenue. This is thanks to Firewatch’s photo-printing feature on PC, which allows users to print off actual photographs taken with the in-game camera. According to Firewatch’s publisher Panic, over 1,000 photo sets have been sold since launch, resulting in another $15,000 in revenue for the game.
The camera sets represent a unique way for Campo Santo to generate additional cash from the game. While some may scoff at the idea of paying real world money for prints of in-game photos, Campo Santo did make the photo printing part of the Firewatch universe, going so far as to have Delilah voice actress Cissy Jones mention the one-hour photo company Fotodome in the game. The photo sets give players a physical reward in exchange for their money, which some may find preferable to purchasing digital media like cosmetic DLC items, for example.
Overall, the sales success of Firewatch is not that surprising. Even though it is an indie game, the title released to a healthy amount of critical acclaim, with our own Firewatch review giving the title high marks as well. There’s also the strong resumes of the Campo Santo staff, who likely drew their fair share of fans to the project. The success of Firewatch means that even more eyes will be watching Campo Santo to see what game the company will produce next, and after Firewatch, the bar has been set pretty high.
Are you one of the 500,000 gamers that downloaded Firewatch? Did you enjoy the game, or were you disappointed by it? Are you excited to see what Campo Santo will create next? Get at us in the comments below and leave us your thoughts on Campo Santo and Firewatch.
Firewatch is currently available for PC and PlayStation 4.
Source: Polygon
