on September 12, 2014 7:32 PM
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Divinity: Original Sin Has Already Made Back Its Budget, Sold Over 500K Copies

After being on top of the Steam best selling list for a month, Larian Studios has pulled back the curtains on how well Divinity: Original Sin has done since releasing at the end of June.

In a blog post on Larian Studios website, founder Swen Vincke posted some eye popping details about sales numbers and development costs. Vincke wrote:

It has sold well over half a million units by now– mostly from Steam, with 10% from retail.  ‘Break even’ has been reached, our debts have been paid and we are now in the profitable zone. While not all of the money is for us as we had private investors on board, the game did sufficiently well for us to envision funding our next endeavors with it, meaning we’re pretty happy about its performance.

So much for turn-based fantasy RPGs not selling, crowdfunding not working and a developer like us not being capable of bringing a game to market without the help of seasoned publishers.

A whopping 500,000 units sold for an indie RPG that is exclusive to PC is quite the feat. What’s even more interesting is the sales breakdown, with only  10% of sales being accredited to retail and most of the rest coming from digital sales on Steam. It’s rare to get a glimpse at the hard sales numbers from Valve’s digital distribution service, so knowing that upward of 450,000 units were moved by the platform gives quite the insight to what being the number one seller for a month can do for a game.

More importantly, we loved Divinity: Original Sin when it came out and are happy to see that the developer has made back the costs of the game in such a quick period of time. I’m only about 40 hours into my playthrough of the game and can tell you I’d be more than ecstatic to hear that there is a chance that more Divinity is a possibility.

You can pick up Divinity: Original Sin on PC today for $39.99.

Source: Swen Vincke @ Larian Studios Blog

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  • Joel Marston

    Awesome. I know nothing of the game but it does seem really interesting and fun. Wondering whether to buy it or not…

    • Andrew Matt

      *Cough* *cough* Go read our review to help you decide http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/07/19/review-divinity-original-sin-kicks-it-old-school/ *cough* *cough*

    • Andrew Matt

      In seriousness though, I have exactly 36 hours on the game and I just cleared the first map. I’m not even sure if I am a fourth of the way through the game or not, which speaks to the amount of content crammed in there. It is tough, old school and brilliant. I love it so far, I’d suggest it.

  • Sexy Mcgee

    Put it on PS4 and it’ll sell a lot more.

    • qqq

      don’t worry, it would sell much, much less. Console players wouldn’t know how to start with a game like this. This is a pc game made for pc gamers, the old school ones, from the 90’s. Even modern pc gamers can’t work out the game. And it would be impossible at this stage to get the game on consoles and those limited and restrictive controlers. They’d have to redesign the whole game.

      The fact that steam sales accounts for 90% of sales is very interesting in regard to traditional pc vs console sales. Pc is made out as the lower seller platform opposite consoles in regards to some multiplatform games. Because they number only retail sales. If this 90% steam sales is something that happens regularly, how wrong are the sale reports then? Skyrim for example, a 3 year old game is still modded to death and always on the most played games list. I’d imagine in reality it sold many times the amount consoles have. But you won’t see it on the sales figures that are being released

  • Nicholas Perry

    Broke even? Didn’t this game get entirely funded on Kickstarter? I do recall it getting like 5+ million dollars.

    They should’ve been even/basically profiting from the get go considering they don’t have to pay back that 5 million.

    But I do remember the game was somewhat in development already before kickstarter too… hm.

    • Nicholas Perry

      After reading the blog post, makes more sense though

      • Andrew Matt

        Lot of private investing plus only about $950,000 from Kickstarter (which they roughly lose 10% of off the top between Kickstarter and Amazon). Glad you read the whole blog post!

  • RandomDev

    If I can get this through GOG I’ll grab it :)