Frozen Synapse has sold 300,000 copies

Turn-based strategy title Frozen Synapse has sold 300,000 copies in its first five months of sales, shattering the internal targets set by Mode 7.

In a guest post on GAMESbrief, designer Paul Taylor explained that Mode 7 had originally hoped to sell 100,000 copies of the game within a year. Instead, the studio sold 300,000 in less than six months.

“Frozen Synapse has been a success for Mode 7, both for us personally and for the company,” said Taylor.

The developer added that the success of game shows that Mode 7 was wise to avoid a free-to-play pricing structure.

“People are willing to pay for something that delivers on a very specific promise and fills a specific need; higher-priced games can work in the indie space, especially as the majority of units are sold during discount periods,” he said.

And while the launch of Frozen Synapse wasn’t without its problems, Taylor feels that the game’s price tag (originally £14.99 for two copies) was justified by its content.

“Our attempt at a “high price; minimal bulls***” play with Frozen Synapse was largely successful; I feel like we under-delivered on both our server provision and our speed of updating post launch, but all-in-all we still brought players a huge amount of content for the price they paid.”

Mode 7 earned $300,000 from direct sales on its own site, plus $135,00 from a paid beta, while third-party sales (including those from Steam) have yet to be accounted for. The game cost $140,000 to make.

The studio now plans to release an iPad version of the game, and to support the original release with DLC.

Martin points out that the game was included in The Humble Bundle, and that this will have helped to drive up sales figures. Even so, it’s impressive that Mode 7 managed to make twice its development cost, and in such a short space of time.

It’s a great game too, if a little fiddly at first. Check out the video in which I DESTROY my housemate, Daniel.