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Jonathan Blow has been forced to borrow money in order to finish development of The Witness after sales of his smash hit Braid slowed to the point that the revenue was no longer sufficient to fund the team.
Braid cost Blow around $200,000 and went on to transform the dev into a millionaire. But all this is now on the line in an effort to complete The Witness.
“Braid still sells well on platforms that are thriving, but two of Braid’s big platforms were the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, both of which are sunsetting at this point,” Blow told Engadget.
He added: “Not so many people are buying digital games there. So the Braid income is not nearly enough anymore to fund the team. I have borrowed a bunch of money to finish The Witness. So I hope when it’s done, some people buy the game.”
The scope of The Witness has also grown considerably over the years from an 8-hour puzzler to up to 40 hours of gameplay.
Blow isn’t concerned about the extended 6-year development time, however.
“If there is such a thing as taking ‘too long,’ we have probably already done that,” he says. “20 years from now, I am not going to care about whether we took an extra six months or a year in development; I am going to care about the quality of the game people got to play. It’d be a shame to sacrifice some of that quality just to squeak the game out a little sooner. Though I do sympathize with people who have been waiting a long time to play.”
Source: Engadget
