SOMA, sales have not yet covered the development costs

Frictional Games has announced that ARE interesting horror to sci-fi background firsthand, has sold over 250,000 copies since it was launched last September, with an average of about 125 units per day. However the figures achieved so far have not been sufficient to break even. It would be necessary to place other 20-30 thousand copies to fully recover costs and make the project profitable.
According to the developers the choice to mix the horror genre and the sci-fi does not intrigued enough the public, despite the SOMA reviews have been fairly positive. As a benchmark was quoted Firewatch, as the title of Campo Santo was able to reach and exceed 500,000 units in a very short time frame.
"This means that the game might be a bit 'too sci-fi for those seeking a purely horror, and vice versa. Although we thought that this would mix very well for the game, it seems likely that this factor has contributed to exclude potential buyers. "

The developers went even further, assuming that SOMA has also contributed to bend the sales of their previous project, Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

"Probably this choice has led to missed sales and is also the main reason why SOMA has cannibalized sales of Amnesia. The moment you came out SOMA sales of Amnesia: The Dark Descent fell and remained at low levels since then. We experienced the same phenomenon when it was published Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs, but since SOMA is in many ways different from Amnesia, we thought that this time it would not have happened. Instead it went like this, and the reason seems to be due to the fact that people brings both titles at Frictional Games ".

Having to deal with reality, and especially with the numbers, the team admitted that the experimental attempts have failed and that the future will try to differentiate their offerings, choosing only one kind at a time.

"With SOMA we made it clear that Frictional Games is not directed towards the horror experience the pure state, and we intend to take advantage of this consideration to diversify the experiences that we deal with."

SOMA debuted on PC and PlayStation 4 September 2015 and is set in a research facility located on the seabed. The game mechanics based on exploration and survival, immerse the player in a narrative context full of mysteries to solve.