Despite not-so-hot sales at the start, Control launched to critical acclaim. And according to the company’s CEO Tero Virtala, good reviews helped Remedy Entertainment keeping a steady pace financially.
Tero Virtala spoke to GameIndustry.biz about the project and gave some insights on successfully creating a new brand. Virtala also mentioned the total money that went into the making of Control, and how the steady sales helped the company.
“Remedy Entertainment is in a good position with steady sales”
Control was developed in three years with a budget of less than €30 million. We don’t quite require the same huge lifetime numbers as many other games with bigger development budgets. Therefore, even though Control didn’t have chart-topping sales right from the get-go, we are in a good position with steady sales. We always take the long view here.
Nowadays, the majority of sales for many games are generated over a long period of time in digital stores — and Control continues to sell, which is good. We are bringing more free and paid content to the game. It has the proven high-quality and uniqueness, and the word-of-mouth that keeps growing. There is still a big audience out there that hasn’t yet heard of Control. These are all factors that support the longer-term sales.
Strategically, it has been highly important that we have succeeded in establishing a new brand. In our industry, this is very challenging: new games come every now and then, but very few breakthroughs and become something special. It is of course still very early days, but Control is showing good signs of establishing itself and having a growing fan base.
