Shovel Knight is a marvelous little platformer, and if you haven't played it yet, you really ought to. Developer Yacht Club Games is extremely pleased by the title's reception thus far and has shared a sales breakdown to lay everything on the line. So how did the 8-bit adventure perform from June 26 through July 26? It moved around 180K copies!
Techinically, this includes Kickstarter and review copies, which add up to rougly 30K. Still, 150K is nothing to sneeze at, considering the company's size and the competition it faced. Breaking down the number further, 37% sold on Steam, where it broke into the top 10 despite the Steam Summer Sale taking place. Wii U accounted for 27%, where it hit the number two spot just under The Wind Waker HD (which reaced number one thanks to the Mario Kart 8 free game promotion). The 3DS accounted for 33%, climbing straight to the top of the charts. The remaining copies were sold through GOG and Humble Bundles.
The team also took the time to break down the costs of development, and their revelations are quite surprising. Even though they earned an impressive $328,682 across Kickstarter and PayPal, they estimated that a game like Shovel Knight with a team of their size working over two years would require $1.44 million! A lot of budget juggling and cutbacks had to be made in order to deliver the game on time, such as leaving many of the stretch goals as post-game content so that money from game sales could be used, cutting each team member's salary in half, and getting composer Jake Kaufman to agree to not seeing a single cent until after the game shipped. Even with all that, the team wound up not getting paid at all for the final five months!
This really puts the realities of indie development in perspective. When fans learned that Mighty No. 9 was launching a second funding drive, a lot of frustration was aired. People were shocked that $4 million was not enough for what the team was planning. But as Shovel Knight has demonstrated, even a simple 8-bit platformer can easily demand a hefty budget, so unless you are willing to make drastic development and personal life cutbacks, you'll need a lot of cash.
But Yacht Club Games pulled through, and Shovel Knight is doing well. Friends across the pond can expect international versions of the Wii U and 3DS builds soon.
