The remaster of the cult indie game Braid sold so “disgustingly” that it threatened the future of its developers

Braid’s status as one of the first commercially successful indie games didn’t help its recent re-release succeed. Lead developer Jonathan Blow spoke about the failures of the project.

Image source: Thekla

Let us remind you that Braid Anniversary Edition (the so-called remaster) was released in mid-May. The new version differs from the original game of 16 years ago by additional content, redrawn graphics and a mode with comments from the developers.

A selection of Blow’s statements about the sales of Braid Anniversary Edition from various streams over the past month and a half was recently published by user Blow Fan on YouTube, who follows the game designer’s work:

• On June 17, Blow stated that Braid Anniversary Edition sold “horribly”;
• A month later, on July 21, Blow described sales of Braid Anniversary Edition as “absolutely terrible”;
• Another week later, on a July 27 stream, Blow once again admitted that Braid Anniversary Edition sold “badly, poorly.”

Already in mid-June, sales of Braid Anniversary Edition were “worse than what our company [Thekla] needs to survive.” “The future is uncertain, let’s put it that way,” Blow said at the time.

By the end of July, due to the failure of Braid Anniversary Edition, Thekla had no money left to pay employees, and therefore no one is currently working on Blow’s Jai programming language.

The game was not promoted at exhibitions and festivals because Blow doesn’t see much point in it

«At some point you realize that you have done a good job, even if the world does not recognize it. I think this is one of these cases,” Blow emphasized, in his opinion, the main advantage of the remaster (detailed comments from the developers).

Braid Anniversary Edition was released on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch and iOS with Android for Netflix subscribers. The most successful re-release platform by far is Steam.