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It’s nice to find out indie hit Hotline Miami is being enjoyed by paying customers as well.
Speaking with Eurogamer, Graeme Struthers of publisher Devolver Digital revealed the game had sold 130,000 copies in its first seven weeks – despite being illegally downloaded at what Struthers describes as extraordinary levels.”
"It has been torrented to such a staggering level, and given the file size of it, I mean, you can’t really be surprised, right? You could pass this thing around on the world’s smallest memory stick," Struthers said. "So it has been torrented to extraordinary levels."
Struthers touched on developer Jonatan Sderstrm’s decision to help out players who had run into bugs after illegally downloaded the game as well.
That’s what he’s like. He just felt he didn’t want people playing the buggy version of his game however they got it. He wanted them to get the patch. He basically said, ‘I’m not going to criticise this, it’s a fact of life. It would be nice if guys could find it within themselves to pay for it, but that’s the world I’m in, so you know, you just have to take it for what it is.’”
While the sales figure seems modest, both Devolver Digital and the developers see it as a great number” for how far the game has come.
If you think of it from a base level, six months ago this turned up at Rezzed and that was the first time outside of a few other indie developers and a few other well-informed people in that indie scene that people had seen it. From that point to where it is, it’s just been an awesome ride.”
