SOMA - 10 days after launch

**jens** · 10-01-2015, 01:39 PM

http://frictionalgames.blogspot.se/2015/...aunch.html

~~Googolplex~~ · 10-01-2015, 04:47 PM

Great trailer and congrations to your ~100.000 copies success!
But where is that "climbing monster" at the end of this trailer?

**Ashtoreth** · 10-01-2015, 05:23 PM

(10-01-2015, 04:47 PM)Googolplex Wrote: Great trailer and congrations to your ~100.000 copies success!
But where is that "climbing monster" at the end of this trailer?

Spoiler below!

**Statyk** · 10-01-2015, 05:39 PM

5 years sounds like quite a toll, you guys deserve a vacation. Can't wait to hear what you have in store next! Maybe in the meantime, you can host another Custom Story event thing like you did when Amnesia came out.

**PathOS** · 10-01-2015, 06:21 PM

Yeah. It is well deserved and I'm glad to see that it has commercially been meeting/slightly exceeding your expectations. This is quite a triumph really for a number of reasons:

Indie Studio with no Marketing Budget (that I know of ) - AFAIK there hasn't been much marketing for this game involving ads or anything.
Brand New IP with an unusual Title - A Machine for Pigs was riding hard on the success of the Amnesia IP and the success of The Dark Descent. While SOMA did the same, it was no doubt much more subdued with the lack of the IP in addition to lukewarm reaction to AMFP.
Slow-burn Intro - This is actually something that has been anathema to games. Most developers, especially the big ones and publishers would never green light a game that has such a "mellow" expository intro. Their logic is to go out guns blazing at the start (putting most of their production values in the first hours) since they feel fewer and fewer will progress far into the game to the end. SOMA pretty much goes against that entirely with the first 1/3 of the game being world building and exposition before actually ratcheting it up to true Horror.
5-Year dev time - Very few would ever take such time with a game, and only would do so if they'd fallen into the trap of overbudgeted and overbloated development, going over and over to change the core game designs. Fortunately you guys knew exactly what you wanted to do and it was just a matter of using the time to get it right.

So hopefully this game will meet the number needed to break even and you'll have enough funds for another long-term project!

That said, I really do love the SOMAverse and would hope there could be more "Episodes" in it. Granted having spent 5 years on it I imagine there'd be a lot of reticence in going back for more. But I personally feel there is a lot more available in this universe to explore than there was with Amnesia.

~~Googolplex~~ · 10-04-2015, 10:51 AM

Wow, Amnesia TDD only sold 30.000 copies in the first month and after some years 3 million in total. While Amnesia AMFP sold 120.000 copies in the first week?! We all always thought AMFP was a financial flop, but it sold very very well!

100.000 copies of SOMA in the first 10 days makes around 2 million euros, while the budget for Amnesia TDD was only 400.000 euros, I think SOMA had something between 3 and 4 million budget, half of the costs are already back.

We all hope you have anough money to work on a new game. Smile

**rini** · 10-06-2015, 03:31 PM

Will this new secret game be on Vulkan engine? Still OpenGL?

~~Googolplex~~ · 10-06-2015, 04:01 PM

(10-06-2015, 03:31 PM)rini Wrote: Will this new secret game be on Vulkan engine? Still OpenGL?

I think they will use DirectX 12 in the future.

**tedy** · 10-06-2015, 04:19 PM

Wish SOMA was somehow cheaper on PSN or at least RETAIL Smile

**butter** · 10-07-2015, 09:10 PM

SOMA was one of the best games ever made in 2015. frictional games, you did an AMAZING job, i can't even describe with my words how i liked the game. IT WAS SIMPLY PHENOMENAL. this is just so cool, it is so cool. ahhh man. i just can't say anything. i just can't. i'm so amazed right now that i can't even think straight probably. i liked every second of the game, i can't think of anything bad. you guys are some kind of wizards, i only remember the best parts. and my best parts where... i don't have best parts. the whole game is the best part. i don't care that it wasn't as scary as amnesia, i don't care. story was so good it just makes scares fade away like nothing, it was amazingly amazing. and the voice acting, characters all those things were just unbelievably good. good job frictional games, good fucking job.

oh my god this was amazing!

holy fuck!!!