Arrowhead's Paradox-published PC action-adventure game Magicka has sold 30,000 digital units day-one, as the game's director tells Gamasutra he "would've been happy" if the title sold that much over its entire lifetime.
The game's publisher, Paradox Interactive said the PC title sold 30,000 units across all digital platforms in its first day of availability, and climbed to the top of Steam's sales charts. It sells for $9.99.
The figures aren't of blockbuster triple-A big-budget proportions, but for a small independent Swedish studio and a game that was born as a student project, $300,000 in total generated revenue in 24 hours is substantial.
"It's gone way past our expections," said Magicka game director and Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt in a phone interview with Gamasutra. "We've got a great response from the community. It's exceeded our expectations by far."
Pilestedt said the studio didn't have an exact sales target for the game, but he admitted, "We would've been happy if a couple of thousand people bought the game, or if 30,000 were the total sales for the whole [life] period."
The game started out as a student project that won the 2008 Swedish Game Awards, a competition for students. Arrowhead was founded around the continued development of the game.
Magicka is a multiplayer action-adventure game in which players take on the roles of wizards who aim to stop a dark sorcerer. It sounds like standard fantasy fare, but the game is laced with satire and dark humor, and its emphasis on chaotic team play and spell combinations have already earned it a loyal fan base.
Early purchasers of Magicka are also cutting the game some slack for a number of launch day bug issues. Pilestedt said the studio is on a "24-hour schedule" for patching the game in order to keep early adopters and future customers happy, and keeping players up to date on the game's status.
"That's the sort of stuff the community deserves from any developer," he said. "...If things aren't working the way the community wants to, you have to fix the stuff. ... At least show good faith in the community. As a gamer, I'd love to see the big developers have that transparency."
Except for the extremely buggy multiplayer lobby, I had a great four-player co-op experience last night. Magicka is definitely a clever game, and I hope Arrowhead gets the technical issues ironed out quickly.
We too have been playing Magicka over lunch quite a bit here. Not sure I'm a fan of how many buttons there are / I kinda hope an eventual XBLA port reduces that a bit, but it's absolutely chaotic fun.
Wow, that is awesome! Congrats to the dev team on the first day of sales. I saw it on Steam yesterday and was very interested, but felt like I should wait for a $5 sale since I'm already backlogged with 50+ games because of a busy schedule. Can anyone tell me if the 3 extra DLC is worth the $10? Just from the sales numbers, I'm pretty convinced that $10 seems worthy of a purchase, but I'd like to have a direct opinion on that.
Also, the number of buttons is one of the things that interested me. I like complexity if there's a nice flow and meaning to the design~
This is really a fun game. Just finished the demo with a coworker, its hard to remember the last time I laughed so much playing a game. I will get the full game and a copy for my brother, steam should have a 4 license pack for sale.
Awesome, I remember competing with these guys in the Swedish Game Awards 2008. They obviously deserved that grand prize back then and still do today!!!
Also, Kris spelled "Magicka" wrong throughout the entire article but somehow managed to spell it right in the URL =)
Wish I thought of it. lol
Also, the number of buttons is one of the things that interested me. I like complexity if there's a nice flow and meaning to the design~
Great work Arrowhead. :)
Some bugs are reaaaally strange indeed, hope they fix it soon.