The Braid Remaster "Sold like Dogsh*t", Says Creator Jonathan Blow

The recently released anniversary edition of the indie puzzle platformer Braid has performed poorly in sales, according to its developer, Jonathan Blow. With sales figures falling short of expectations, Blow has indicated that he is now struggling to maintain full-time staff.

The original Braid, released in 2008, was a significant hit on Xbox Live Arcade. According to Blow, the game ranked 2nd in the top-selling Xbox Live Arcade titles of the year and by April 2012, the game had sold 450,000 copies. The sales were “very profitable”, earning Blow a higher income than he would have earned working a high-paying job during the game's development period.

Despite the revamped version featuring fully redesigned artwork, fresh puzzles, and comprehensive commentary, and was launched on various platforms including PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox Series X/S, mobile platforms, and even to Netflix subscribers, sales were not as robust as Blow had hoped even though no specific sales number was mentioned.

"It has sold like dogsh*t compared to what we need to make for the company to survive,” stated Blow in Twitch streams in June, one month after the remaster was released on Steam. 

Although Blow had initially expressed optimism about the remaster's sales following its release in May, by late July, his outlook had considerably soured. On July 21st and 22nd, for two continuous days, he had described the sales “terrible”. 

The underwhelming performance of the remaster has left the company struggling to hire full-time staff. In a stream on July 27, when asked how many people in his company were working full-time on the compiler for the programming language Jai, Blow responded, "none, because we can't afford to pay anyone because the sales are bad."

What do you think is the reason behind the modest sale of the remaster? Let us know. You can check out the remaster version of the game on Steam here.

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