Hellblade sales above expectations, almost broken even

Hellblade was a risky experiment for developer Ninja Theory, but it's so far proven to be a success.

Ninja Theory spent years using its own money to create a wholly-owned new IP, developed from the ground up as a digital-only game. The result was Hellblade, which many agree is a pretty good game. But what about the financial end, did it all work out for the studio?

According to creative director Tameem Antoniades, it has been a success. Speaking to GamesBeat in a long postmortem, Antoniades revealed that the studio is actually planning to release a new developer diary specifically to talk about sales numbers, cost, and other details that he hopes would help other developers in similar situations.

"It sold better than our expectations," said Antoniades. "I think it’s almost broken even, or it’s about to break even in the next couple of weeks. I’d have to check."

Though it may sound unimpressive compared to juggernauts like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the point is that sales were above expectations. "We weren’t expecting to break even for six, eight, nine months on this game. It looks like within three months, it will have broken even and then some," added Antoniades.

The best part, as the creative director points out, is that the bulk of the money goes to Ninja Theory and not to a third-party publisher, because the game is self-published.

The rest of the piece is well worth your time, give it a look through the link above.