Braid creator Jonathan Blow has said the recently released anniversary edition of the indie platformer has sold “terribly” and said he is currently struggling to find full-time employees.
Blow, who also created The Witness, catapulted himself into the upper echelons of independent video game development after Braid found massive success on Xbox Live Arcade in 2008. The game has since gone on to become one of the best indie games of all time, with many spot-on reviews.
16 years later, in May 2024, Blow released a remaster with completely repainted graphics, modern puzzles, and in-depth commentary for PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, Android, and iOS, with a mobile version released by Netflix for those with an busy subscription. An Anniversary Edition was announced during Sony’s State of Play event in August 2020.
As the user showed on Reset EraYouTube channel called “Blowing fan” published a compilation of Blow’s comments on Braid, Anniversary Edition’s sales figures, made during several live streams in the months since its release. While Blow doesn’t confirm the sales figures, the picture he paints here is clear: Braid, Anniversary Edition was a flop.
In a June 17 stream, Blow said that Braid, Anniversary Edition sold “terribly.” “It sold like hell compared to what we have to produce to keep the company going,” he continued. “So the future is uncertain, let’s put it that way.”
Then, on July 21, Blow was asked again about sales. “No, they were terrible,” he replied. “Absolutely terrible.”
In another stream on July 22, he said that releasing Braid, Anniversary Edition on so many platforms “made a difference, but the problem is that most of those platforms are fucking dead now.”
“Steam is still our largest platform,” he continued. “There would be something to be said for just not moving to half of those platforms.
“It’s a really interesting thing that we did. We commented in a way that no one has ever done, on a much more in-depth level than anyone else. And at some point, you just have to know that what you did was the right thing, even if the world doesn’t appreciate it. And I think this is one of those cases.”
Then, in a July 27 stream, Blow again addressed Braid, Anniversary Edition sales, but this time questioned his company’s ability to hire employees. When asked how many people at his company work on the Jai programming language compiler full time, Blow said, “None, because we can’t afford to pay anyone because sales are so weak.”
“The entire gaming industry is going through tough times,” he said.
Blow’s comments have sparked something of an investigation online into why Braid, Anniversary Edition is struggling. In one thread, Blow downplayed the impact that bringing the game to conventions and showing it to people might have had on the game’s success, saying that conventions don’t help promote video games. He also said that promoting the game in podcasts and YouTube interviews wouldn’t have helped either. There are others who suggest that there was little demand for a Braid remaster to begin with, and that the original was still fully playable after all these years.
Blow’s studio is Thekla, Inc., which also developed and published the 2016 first-person puzzle game The Witness. It is reportedly working on several unannounced projects, including a VR game.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter @wyp100. You can contact Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
