The hit Prison Architect has been a constant presence on Steam since 2015. But this success brings new challenges for the indie developer.
What kind of game is it? The prison-building game Prison Architect was launched in 2015 and sold over 2 million units within approximately a year, generating around 25 million US dollars in revenue. Later, the indie studio sold the brand to Paradox Interactive for an undisclosed amount.
However, the success of Prison Architect also presented the developers at Introversion Software with new problems.
A sequel to Prison Architect even brings 3D prisons:
A hit that changes everything
What changed with the hit? With the great success of Prison Architect and the sale of the brand, the developers generated high revenues for an indie studio. However, the success did not come without consequences. As Mark Morris, one of the studio’s founders, explains:
For the first time in our history, we didn’t have to release a game within the next 12 months, otherwise we would have had nothing to eat […] that’s a luxurious situation, which I don’t complain about, but it is not necessarily beneficial for creativity, as there are no constraints to keep you in check.
Mark Morris on gamesindustry.biz
For the developers, financial freedom is not just a positive thing. The lack of pressure to release a new game may have contributed to creative problem-solving as well. However, the cushion is also a problem for the developers. Another challenge was to build on the success.
The sequel to Prison Architect, Scanner Sombre, sold only 6,000 copies in two months on Steam and did not replicate the success of Prison Architect. Their Steam hit set a benchmark that has created enormous expectations.
What does it look like financially? Financially, the developers probably should have continued Prison Architect indefinitely or better yet, published sequel after sequel. However, Mark Morris explained in an interview with gamesindustry.biz that this would mean death for a creative studio. They would keep playing it safe and bring fewer and fewer new innovative ideas.
Perhaps that is also why it was a good idea for the studio to sell Prison Architect and the brand to Paradox, as this idea will no longer be in place. However, building on that success is currently difficult.
Even though there are no official numbers for the latest title The Last Starship, 653 reviews on Steam seem little compared to the over 50,000 for Prison Architect.
The success of the studio is both a curse and a blessing. The developers at Introversion Software are still working on new titles and are not letting their creativity be constrained by their former success. Another indie developer had to fight on Steam for her game: Indie developer cries because EA ruined the release of her game – rewarding all who bought it anyway
