Following the highly anticipated release of Jonathan Blow’s The Witness, we finally dig into the outstanding first week numbers! In other major news, Glu Mobile looks to recover from a shaky 2015 financial report, while Blizzard’s Hearthstone shakes up the game with new game modes and more deck slots!
Jonathan Blow Launches Another Indie Success
Jonathan Blow, developer of the indie classic Braid, released his new atmospheric puzzle game, The Witness, last week. In its first week, the game has reportedly sold more than 100,000 copies, racking up over $5 million in gross revenue, according to a statement from Blow. Polygon reported on the game’s success and noted that neither PS4 nor PC platforms dominated the sales. Late last week, Blow had also announced that The Witness had unfortunately become the #1 game on a popular torrent site. According to GamesIndustry the level of piracy has forced Blow to consider DRM though he has been against the idea of it in the past.
Celebrity Endorsement Formula Falters for Glu Mobile
Despite numerous announcements of celebrity partnerships, developer and publisher Glu Mobile’s revenue and profit was down in both Q4 and overall for 2015, reports GamesIndustry. After the remarkable success of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, the publisher failed to shine with James Bond: World of Espionage and Katy Perry: Pop. In December, the studio cut 50 jobs across its studios as a result of the performances in the last two quarters. Pushing through their rough patches however, the company continues to move along with their latest partnerships including games with Gordon Ramsay and Taylor Swift.
Introducing the New Hearthstone
Blizzard announced some big changes to Hearthstone this week. According to Kotaku, multiplayer games will soon be separated into standard and wild modes with the standard mode only allowing card sets from the current and previous calendar years, plus the classic/basic sets. This means the content from 2014, will not be part of standard play for this year. Wild mode will allow for all content to be included in decks.