Jonathan Blow’s The Witness smashes Braid sales despite high level of piracy

The Witness may have taken Jonathan Blow seven years to make, but it looks to be recouping its development costs in a fraction of that time.

The game, which has been critically acclaimed for its heady mix of maze-like puzzles and Myst-esque island exploration, came out last week, but has almost overtaken the sales of Blow’s iconic time-twisting platformer Braid already.

“It’s hard to talk about numbers without breaking NDAs, but The Witness is on track to sell more in a week than Braid sold in its first year, and Braid was a hit indie game,” Blow tweeted.

“Which is not to be too money-oriented, it’s just great that we’ll be able to make the next game at a comparable budget level (maybe bigger, we’ll see!)”

Blow added that he has plans for a follow-up title – although he expects it to reach the light of day far quicker.

Unfortunately, The Witness hasn’t just been popular among paying players; it’s also found “success” with illegal downloaders. Blow expressed his worry that the impact of piracy could affect the creation of his next game.

“It seems The Witness is the #1 game on a certain popular torrent site,” he revealed.

“Unfortunately this will not help us afford to make another game! I’m glad that a lot more people will be experiencing the game! But I also want to be able to make another comparable game next! Just sayin’.

“By the way, we can tell whether streamers are running a legit copy of the game or a pirated one. I just saw a streamer with 3 million views.”

https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/693668210499977216https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/692831051845083137